Indelible Messages from Newgrange to Kakadu Park

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the diverse features cited to justify the idea that inscriptions on the surfaces of the monoliths could convey meanings into the future. Experts and government agencies changed their cited models multiple times, finally arriving at the Athenian Acropolis and Australian aboriginal rock art as unlikely paired models, after considering the tomb at Newgrange and Spanish Levantine rock art. All the archaeological sites mentioned were either named or nominated as UNESCO World Heritage sites, suggesting a shared common sense about archaeological sites. In addressing these varied analogues of the marker, the experts employed specific theories of communication based on presumed universals in the use of pictographs and narratives, understood today to be questionable. The chapter ends with an interlude considering Australian response to plans to place nuclear waste repositories in aboriginal land, and how aboriginal art can be understood in relation to such planning.

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