107-122 Australian Rock Art

see Prerequisites.

The subject explores the stylistic developments of rock art across the millennia and continents within various theoretical and methodological approaches. It also studies the way rock art encodes symbolic meanings and provides an insight into the world of the artists. The purposes of the art form, including rock art as representations of religious rites, historical and mythological narratives, territorial markers and decoration, will be explored. Students should develop a firm grasp of regional and chronological variations of rock art; of the various approaches to the study of rock art; of techniques of dating rock art; and appreciate that rock art comprises complex symbolic and mythological meanings.