Nawarla Gabarnmang (Terre d’Arnhem, Australie)
Nawarla Gabarnmang is a major rock art site of northern Australia. Occupied by people for some 50,000 years, it contains an exceptional deposit of stone artefacts including one of the oldest ground-edge stone axes in the world (35,500 years) and an extensively decorated ceiling with close to 1 400 p...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme
2019-05-01
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| Series: | Les Nouvelles de l’Archéologie |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/nda/5110 |
| Summary: | Nawarla Gabarnmang is a major rock art site of northern Australia. Occupied by people for some 50,000 years, it contains an exceptional deposit of stone artefacts including one of the oldest ground-edge stone axes in the world (35,500 years) and an extensively decorated ceiling with close to 1 400 paintings in multiple panels and with numerous superpositions. The earliest evidence of art dates to 27,000–26,000 years ago—an excavated broken piece of painted rock—with the most recent art dating to the late 19th-early 20th century. The site’s interdisciplinary study has shed information on the decorated panels, and from the excavations a robust cultural chronology has been revealed. Archaeomorphology has allowed us to understand the history of the site’s wall and ceiling configurations, surfaces on which the art is found: under its vast overhang, multiple ceiling and more that 50 rock pillars are found. Their study showed that the site’s morphology was crafted by people: it is, in effect, an architectural construct. Archaeomorphological research has enabled the recovery of human actions underlying the site that we see today. |
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| ISSN: | 0242-7702 2425-1941 |