ANCIENT rock art is slowly being rediscovered within Jawoyn land. In May this year, an internationally-acclaimed archaeological team spent ten days digging and documenting a small portion of a rock art complex called Gabarnmung (Barra Site).
A group of Jawoyn Traditional Owners including Margaret Katherine and Sybil Ranch together with Jawoyn CEO Preston Lee and Nitmiluk Tours Chairman Wes Miller will soon visit the Monash University labs to review the results from the carbon dating process and to see for themselves all the finds from the dig. Gabarnmung was rediscovered three years ago after it was spotted by Jawoyn Association staff from a helicopter.
The site has a ceiling covered with rock art with the layers signifying the location was visited over and overagain.
There are a number of paintings of fish, crocodiles, wallabies, people, spiritual figures and much more.
Cultural and Environment Manager Ray Whear and pilot Chris Morgan have spent thousands of hours flying over the land as part of the Jawoyn land management programme and have rediscovered more than 3,000 rock art sites this way.
They have been taking Jawoyn elders out to the sites in the hope they can learn more about what the paintings mean and their significance to the Jawoyn people.
It’s the first time a dig has taken place on Jawoyn country and it was led by Monash University’s Doctor Bruno David.
The rest of the team consisted of co-Principal archaeologist from France Professor Jean-Michel Geneste, Senior eomorphologist Professor Jean-Jacques Delannoy and two documentary filmmakers for the scientific team Bernard Sanderre and Patricia Marquet.
The team spent time examining the paintings and also doing small digs to try and date the site and its paintings.
Dr David said he has dedicated his life to working with Indigenous communities documenting the history of their cultural places in close collaboration with them.
“It is their country, their site(s), their history, their ancestors, and in all this, about their lives today. We cannot treat archaeology as abstract science, as it always involves the home and history of individuals and groups,” Mr David said.
He said with this approach to archaeology he assembled a team of archaeologists who had a similar attitude and ethical approach and who would treat the site with the deepest respect.
Dr David said the site is spectacular and he felt “deep gratitude to the Jawoyn Association, Margaret, the ancestors and the place itself as an ancestral-into-present landscape”.
“Then when we walked into the site I immediately saw that under the ground there was enormous archaeological potential.
Looking up, the rock art itself was superb,” he said.
“It is the sum of all those things that touched me deep inside. There are many superb rock art sites in Arnhem Land; many interesting rock formations; many sites with great deposits; and a few very well-protected sites signaling good reservation of ancient deposits, but very, very few sites with a combination of all.”
He said most importantly this site “is alive in the people today and as an ancestral and ancestors’ place.”
He said having Margaret and other Jawoyn representatives talking to the group about culture as it relates to the site was also important.
“This imbued what we were doing as archaeologists with a very particular and significant kind of meaning. The meaning of the archaeological work we were doing to the descendants of the ancestors who created the site, this too is of greatest importance.”
During the dig, the team dug two squares, each 50 cm wide and 60 cm long against the back wall of two different pillars.
“We dug each site in thin artificial layers we call excavation units, each of average 1.8 cm thick, following the soil layers.
We used fine-grained archaeological excavation methods to peel off one excavation unit at a time and thereby reveal the history of the site like pages in a book. The deeper we went, the older it got. As we dug deeper, the stone tools changed, the charcoal changed, the animal bones changed, the evidence of paintings in the form of ochre and grinding stones with ochre marks on them changed,” Dr David said.
They found bones from particular animals such as bandicoots and were able to let Margaret know straight away.
“She would walk up to the dig to see, often sit next to us and discuss the findings in light of her own cultural knowledge. We would explain everything we did and why and would ask her permission before we did anything.
“If she had said no at any time, we would have followed her advice as this is her ancestral site and her ancestral cultural materials.
But she told us she wanted to find out lost things about her ancestors, which is also about her own past.
And Margaret often told us of cultural ways that helped us interpret how things got into the site, for example animal bones and paperbark in the site matching how in Jawoyn country sometimes people carry animal bones in paperbark - she would explain the cultural ways and reasons,” he said.
Dr David said after digging at the site they sieved the sediments and bagged the materials retained in the sieves and took them back to Monash University for laboratory sorting and analysis.
“We also sent a large number of pieces of charcoal to the Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory in New Zealand for carbon dating. We have now received the results and while we’ve already told the Jawoyn Association, we are now writing these up for publication in international archaeology journals.
“Next week, when a delegation of Jawoyn representatives including Margaret come down to Monash, we will be able to show them all the different things found in the excavations, and tell them face-to-face all the results. Most importantly they have invited us to their home: we look forward to them visiting our home now,” Dr David said.
The Katherine Times was taken out to three sites (including Gabarnmung) recently to see for itself the rock art which is in excellent condition, protected from the sun and water in rocky outcrops and caves.
Margaret first visited Gabarnmung soon after it was rediscovered and this was a very overwhelming and emotional experience.
“I was very happy that all my ancestors had been walking that country,” she said.
She said when she saw the paintings she felt very proud.
“First I had to call out for my ancestors and told them I had brought these people to find out how long they had lived in the caves,” Margaret said.
She goes back to the sites as much as she can. “When I go back I can feel their (ancestors) presence and cry for my country.”
Another site, the ‘boat site’ has extraordinary paintings of large and small boats.
There is a large boat painted in white ochre with several men in hats standing in it and what could be a chain and anchor attached to the boat.
Smaller sail boats also adorn the rock surface which is filled with paintings of kangaroos, fish, crocodiles, people, hands and Jawoyn spiritual figures.
The Jawoyn Association is unsure whether it was Jawoyn people themselves who painted the boats or if it was people from near the coast that travelled inland.
A painting of the now-extinct Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine appears on another rock surrounded
by Dynamic figures with spears and boomerangs.
Even more astonishing is a painting of a large emu-like bird thought to be a Genyornis – the biggest bird known to have existed, more than 40,000 years ago.
The archaeologist team from Monash University has committed to coming back to Jawoyn land to carry out further digs and the Jawoyn Association is looking to work in partnership and to secure funding to carry out further exploration of their land.
“This is an extremely important site. We will return next year to do more excavations there, to find out more about the site, especially when did the ancestors first come here,” Dr David said.
“While we’ve done two small excavations, there are still other parts of the site that we know nothing about. It’s a large site and we now only begin to understand it.”
Margaret said the paintings were very important in telling the story of her people and it was vital their grandchildren visit the site.
“I feel at home there. I’ll go back until I’m gone but my spirit will be there,” she said.
Author: Tegan Forder | Source: Katherine Times [September 29, 2010]
