Overview

Pundawar Manbur is one of the largest painted rock shelters in the Drysdale River valley of the Kimberley, Western Australia. It contains more than 600 rock paintings, engravings and rock markings with a complex series of overlapping styles of rock art. It is a cultural jewel of Kwini Country, within the lands of the Balanggarra Native Title determination. This monograph presents the first detailed recording and analysis of the site and its art. There are many figures in superposition, and many also in carefully targeted patterns of superimposition, making for a rich story of sequential engagements going back many thousands of years. There is much figurative art, including images from the earliest purported phase of Kimberley art, the Irregular Infill Animal Period, but there are also stencils and other markings. There is evidence of additive reuse – some of the figures have been repainted. There is also fascinating evidence of subtractive reuse, some of the images showing signs of having been ‘battered’ and/or scratched, that is, directly engaged with subsequent to their painting. This monograph is unusual in Australian archaeology as it does not focus on an excavated site; it focuses solely on the rock art of Pundawar Manbur and gives it the attention it deserves.

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9781805831471

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Dr Robert Gunn is a consultant archaeologist and independent researcher with over 45 years’ experience in the recording and management of Australian Aboriginal rock art. He has published over 100 articles and monographs, mostly on areas of rock art research. He has worked throughout Australia, with research interests in the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, Central Australia, western Victoria, southern Western Australia, and western New South Wales. His work involves the collection of both archaeological and ethnographic information, working closely with senior Aboriginal custodians and traditional owners. Robert completed his PhD at Monash University (Australia) in 2017. Professor Bruno David (Monash University) is an archaeologist who researches First Nations homelands (in Aboriginal Australia, known as ‘Country’) in close partnership with Indigenous communities who request such research. He has undertaken field research in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and New Mexico in the USA. Bruno is an Australian Research Council Industry Laureate Fellow. He has published 17 academic books and c. 300 refereed papers on various aspects of landscape and coastal archaeology, rock art, and the archaeology of oral traditions.

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