AboriginalSettlement

Aboriginal rock art in Panaramitee style of South Australia dated within Holocene epoch from 11,700 years ago

Aboriginal rock art in Panaramitee style of South Australia dated within Holocene epoch from 11,700 years ago
Typical motifs (at left) at Panaramitee sites: a. macropod tracks b. bird tracks c. circles d. radiating lines e. lizards f. crescents g. dots. Top right: Black dots indicated recorded Panaramitee-style sites around Australia. Bottom right: Panaramitee-style engravings from Middle Arm Peninsula, Northern Territory.
Map and Northern Territory image by Ellen Tiley

Panaramitee, a style of Aboriginal rock art confirmed as going back from 11,000 years ago, was named after its occurrence at Yunta Springs (Olary district) and Red Gorge (Flinders Ranges)

The style depicts animal tracks including those of macropods (kangaroos, wallabies etc), birds and humans as well as radiating designs, circles, spots, crescents and spirals. These petroglyphs or pecked engravings in rock were also found in central Australia, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia.

The first person to publish academic papers about the petroglyphs in the north of his state was South Australian anthropologist, geologist, explorer, politician and doctor Herbert Basedow. He made the first qualified claims of Pleistocene (before 11,700 years ago) antiquity, outside of Europe, for the Australian rock art. Basedow justified the Pleistocene-age for the rock art at two sites by them becoming inaccessible due of glacial or river erosion. Linking the megafauna fossils found at Lake Collabonna, Basedow speculated that a large animal track petroglyph could represent the diprotodon, a large marsupial thought to have gone extinct 44,000 years ago.

Anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist Norman Tindale, also long associated with the South Australian Museum, later visited Yunta Springs and also speculated that images of large bird tracks at Pimba, near Woomera, could depict megafauna.

Also documenting Aboriginal rock art and engravings in the 1960s, anthropologist and later South Australian Museum curator Robert (Bob) Edwards, working with his mentor Charles Mountford, thought a complex maze at Panaramitee North sitde, near Yunta, represented the head of a saltwater crocodile that had existed in southern Australia for millions of years. A later Aboriginal interpretation of the petroglyph was that it was a “magic object”. 

Although Edwards’ research on rock engravings was influential, his career saw a shift to appreciating that many sites that he regarded as ancient were part of a living tradition. He and Mountford found that many petroglyphs were near water sources.

Modern dating techniques didn’t support the claims for petroglyphs being from the Pleistocene epoch but a consensus was that the Panaramitee style emerged during the first half of the Holocene (after 11,700 years ago) epoch.

* Information from "Pleistecene rock art in Australia" by Robert G. Bednarick, JSTOR.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

The excellence award-winning staff in 2024 for Ngangkita Ngartu, the Aboriginal family birthing programme at the Women's and Children's Hospital in North Adelaide. The programme had made an outstanding impact in increased engagement with the hospital's services.
Health >
Family birthing unit at Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide, wins 2024 top award for its overwhelming impact
READ MORE+
The South Australian Museum's Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery, displaying a small portion of the museum's overall Aboriginal art and artefacts collection of 30,000 items.
Aboriginal >
World's biggest array – 30,000 – of Aboriginal cultural artefacts collected by the South Australian Museum
READ MORE+
Captain John Jones came from the 19th Century whaling tradition but took on the role ofexplorer in his search for suitable settlement locations around the South Australian coast.
Explorers >
John Jones finds future Port Adelaide in 1834; Tasmanian merchants seeking places to settle in South Australia
READ MORE+
The Hallett Cove or Parkapiki coastline, south of Adelaide, and (inset) grinding stones, among the many Aboriginal artefacts found in the area. Main image courtesy National Parks South Australia
Aboriginal >
Aboriginal artefacts haul at Hallett Cove, near Adelaide, from 20,000-12,000 years ago and older Karta culture
READ MORE+
A night scene in the bush, Kangaroo Island in 1839, with an Aboriginal and European group, drawn by W.H.Leigh.
Aboriginal >
Aboriginal women from Tasmania and South Australian mainland taken for 19th Century Kangaroo Island sealers
READ MORE+
Ceduna on South Australia's far west coast and (inset) the cashless welfare card operating there since 2016. Ceduna image courtesy ExploreOz
Welfare >
Cashless welfare card tried in Ceduna, South Australia, with intent to cut alcohol abuse, gambling and assaults
READ MORE+

 

 
©2025 Adelaide AZ | Privacy | Terms & Disclaimer | PWA 1.1.58