Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: Dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia

Abstract

Northern Australia is one of the very few regions of the world where an established tradition of rock-art has continued and extends into present-day knowledge. Excavation of deposits under the painted surfaces allows the age of the paintings to be estimated, by linking across to these deposits and their dateable contexts. One can begin to assess the antiquity of those systems of knowledge and of ‘signifying’. © 1994, Antiquity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.