John A Hayward

Flinders University · humanities, archaeology and social sciences

During recent detailed recording of Nanguluwurr, a rock art site that is part of the Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) complex of cultural sites in Kakadu National Park, Australia, the data showed discrete clusters of specific motif types distributed throughout the length of the gallery. This paper focuses on the spatial distribution of the main motif cluste...

Shields were not known to have been made or used in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia, since European contact and possibly as a consequence are rarely found in the rock art of the region. However, during a recent survey of rock art sites in the Burrungkuy region of Kakadu two shields, or shield-like implements, were recorded in one shelter. T...

This paper addresses the motivations for producing the rare object stencils found in the rock art of western Arnhem Land. We present evidence for 84 stencils recorded as part of the Mirarr Gunwarddebim project in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia. Ranging from boomerangs to dilly bags, armlets and spearthrowers, this assemblage suggests somet...

The rock art of the northern Kakadu region of the Northern Territory of Australia has a large range of paintings that depict human figures interacting with material culture items such as spears, spearthrowers, clubs and boomerangs. The paintings are often rendered in fine detail allowing for identification of specific artefact types. Many of the ar...

The use of the term ‘toolkit’ to describe aspects of lithic assemblages has been widespread since it was introduced into the archaeological lexicon in the 1960s. The history of the concept, which emerged from the analysis of European Mousterian assemblages by Binford and Bordes, is traced from its roots to the present day. In Australia it has becom...

This article provides an archaeologist's reflection on some forgotten cultural and historical artefacts. Since the early 1920s, performing artists and variety acts who visited the Hoyleton Institute Hall in the Mid North of South Australia inscribed their names on the inside of the stage doors as a memento of their visit. Towards the end of the 20t...

Zecchin’s 1000 small watercolours on vertical 148 x 105 mm handmade cotton rag rectangles are arranged on all the available walls of Newmarch Gallery in large diamond shape groups from floor to ceiling.

The exhibition showing at the Newmarch Gallery entitled Strange Days brings together six artists involved in the Prospect Art Action Network who have created works that respond to, or maybe more correctly, have emerged from the experience of living through a major pandemic.

This paper presents findings from a recent study of the Anbangbang Gallery in the Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) site complex of Kakadu National Park, Australia. Using new technologies alongside established methods for rock art documentation, we discuss the complexity and uniqueness of Anbangbang Gallery as an icon of Australian rock art. We have taken a...

This thesis focuses on rock art paintings from western Arnhem Land and, specifically, those depicting human figures interacting with material culture items - people and things. Previous researchers have found that some of the earliest depictions of the human figure in this region, which are thought to date back to over 10,000 years ago, are often s...

In 1988 Darrell Lewis published a monograph which included a chronology for the rock art of the west Arnhem Land region based upon depictions of certain material culture items that appeared to be dominant during specifi c periods of the late Pleistocene and Holocene. The four-phase chronology included a period which Lewis termed the 'Broad Spearthr...