Following the Threads: A Relational Analysis of Change and Continuity in Wardaman Rock Art and Ancestors, Northern Australia

Madeleine traces the web of relationships that compose rock paintings on Wardaman Country, the ancestral lands of the First Nations Wardaman people in northern Australia. They take a multivocal approach, analysing rock painting spatial and temporal distribution using multivariate statical methods, Harris Matrix analysis, and Wardaman knowledge informed by Wardaman ontological and epistemological engagements with rock art. The thesis builds on archaeological understandings of inter-regional connections between northern Australian rock art regions, weaving together Wardaman and Western methodologies. It reconceptualizes the archaeological frameworks through which rock art researchers undertake regional spatial analysis and develop temporal sequences.