Landscapes, Rock-Art and the Dreaming: An Archaeology of Preunderstanding

Description

The apparent timelessness of the Dreaming of Aboriginal Australia has long mystified European observers, conjuring images of an ancient people in harmony with their surroundings. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that the Dreaming's historical antiquity had never been explored by archaeologists prior to this study. In this seminal text in rock-art research, now reissued with a new preface, Bruno David examines the archaeological evidence for Dreaming-mediated places, rituals and symbolism. What emerges is not a static culture, but a mode of conceiving the world that emerged in its recognizable form only about 1,000 years ago. This is a world of what the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has called pre-understanding, a condition of knowledge that shapes one's experience of the world. By tracing through time the archaeological visibility of one well known mode of pre-understanding - the Dreaming of Aboriginal Australia - the author argues that it is possible to scientifically explore an archaeology of pre-understanding; of body and mind, identity and Being-in-the-world.

Bruno David is a Professor in the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre at Monash University, Australia. He has published over 100 academic and popular papers and monographs, is co-editor of Inscribed Landscapes, and has been awarded more than 50 prizes and awards, including the inaugural Antiquity Prize for his work on the archaeology of rock-art in Northern Australia.