Shifting worlds: post-contact rock art in Central Australia

A substantial quantity of rock art was produced in central Australia in the period following contact between the Indigenous population and Europeans in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. An analysis of the post-contact rock art assemblage indicates that, despite the abrupt disruption to traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles, the Indigenous response to the European invasion in this region was more positive, resilient and creative than early historians assumed. Significantly, many elements of the pre-contact assemblage continued to be produced or reworked whilst the range of production techniques expanded. Innovations emerged with a number of older forms of representation being replaced by newer forms, a range of new subject matter was introduced, and new means of flagging identity were created alongside the old. Analysis of the post-contact rock art assemblage has demonstrated that Aboriginal people in central Australia were active participants in change, mediating their interactions with the intruders in innovative ways.