Aboriginal engravings in the southwest of Western Australia: analysis of the Kybra Site

Abstract

This paper presents an analvsis of Aboriginal rock engravings in the far southwestern corner of Western /\ustralia that wen' first dc'scribed bv Clarke in 1983, the Kvbra Site. Comprising engravings of predominantly animal tracks, particularly bird tracks, on flat tabular limestone pavements, the site appeared to extend the known range of a group of rock engravings known as the I'anaramitee. Engraving sites of this tradition are widely distributed across Australia, and the Panaramitee has been represented as homogeneous at a continental level. A multivariate investigation using correspondence analysis and cluster analvsis was undertaken comparing the Kybra Site with other engraving sites in \Vestern Australia and elsewhere. The aim was to determine whether the Kvbra Site showed similarities with other Pana ra mitee engravi ng si tes, and whethc'r an ex plana torv fra mework. known as the Discontinuous Dreaming Network Model. could account for anv similarities or differences identified. I found that the Western Australian sit~'s are more different to each other than thev are to other sites in eastern Australia, and reveal similarities with engravings in Cape York Peninsula, the Carpentaria region and central western Queensland. This finding fits well with the tenets of the Discontinuous Dreaming Network Model, which holds that the similarities between engraving sites across vast distances of Australia reflect the widespread links forged Dreaming tracks and suggested by the trade and other social networks that sometimes spanned the continent.