A disenchanted area, Victoria River district.
“This area, mostly oval or circular in shape, remains a strict taboo to all beyond its confines, and is believed to disenchant any morbid influence the evil spirit may bring to bear upon it.”
It will be admitted that these primitive carvings or petroglyphs of the northern Flinders Ranges have more than a passing resemblance to the ancient graffiti of Egypt. It will be noticed, too, that the last illustration includes a slab of rock upon which some of the designs only occur in part. This is because the slab has fallen from its original position, since the carvings were made upon it; and so, at several points, portion of a design can be seen upon a rock lying in the valley, whilst the piece belonging to it might be detected, still in situ, up in a cliff. This in itself seems to suggest that the work of ages has been going on since the ancient artists put their talents to a test.
It is astounding to what height above the level of the ground the natives must have climbed to decorate the rock faces with their carvings; in many instances atmospheric denudation has so altered the shape of the cliffs that it would be impossible at the present day to reach some of the designs, to say nothing of finding a footing to undertake the carving.
But more, several cases were observed where a design was bisected by a gaping fissure; all the evidence was in favour of the separated portions of the design having originally been contiguous, but subsequent earth movement had forced them asunder. In addition to the actual cleft existing between the two portions of a design, cases were noted where a slight faulting had occurred along the fissure, through which one side of the disrupted design stood at a measurably higher level than the other.
The strongest geological evidence in support of the great antiquity of these carvings, however, is in the presence of a dark rust-coloured patina or glossy surface film which everywhere covers the exposures of the rock and carvings as well. These protective films are characteristic of all desert and arid regions. In Egypt, it has been ascertained that the presence of the patina is a ready means of distinguishing primitive carvings from those made within historic reckoning. Professor G. Schweinfurth, the famous Egyptologist, has pointed out that whereas the prehistoric carvings are covered by the patina, the incised hieroglyphics of even the fifth and sixth Dynasty at El Kab are as fresh-looking as though they had been carved yesterday. In some of the Australian examples there is no appreciable difference between the thickness of the film on the rock and that covering the design; in others the designs look quite fresh, or, if they show anything at all, it is but a rudimentary glaze. The conclusion is that some of the Australian designs must, upon this evidence alone, be regarded as extremely old.
But there is further evidence. If we could definitely claim the platypus design as authentic, it would mean that the ancient artist was familiar with the form of an animal which at the present time is quite unknown in central Australia. But geology tells us that in times gone by, in the Pliocene period, perhaps even later, all the great lake systems of the Australian interior were not salt, as they are now, but fresh water. Under those conditions, it is quite feasible that the duck-billed monotreme might easily have lived in that region; if so, it might have supplied prehistoric man in Australia with a model he perpetuated in the rocks.
The platypus design is by no means unique. Among the carvings at Yunta there are several depicting the spoor of a very large animal, which are rounded at one end like a heel and have four or five serrations resembling toe-marks at the other. The picture is not unlike that of a wombat track, but the dimensions are far too great. The Yunta “tracks” measure nearly ten inches in length and are practically the same in width. There is no animal living in Australia at the present time whose track would be anything like as large; the nearest known animal which might answer the form of the carving would perhaps be that of a hippopotamus. This animal is, of course, not indigenous to Australia, but we know that an extinct animal, probably not unlike a hippopotamus, used to roam the fertile plains of central Australia in Pliocene times; that was the Diprotodon. In the accompanying sketch I have placed a tracing of the Yunta carving beside one of the reconstructed manus of the Diprotodon, and one must admit that there is a plausible agreement between the two. Vide [Fig. 13].
Fig. 13. Sketch of reconstructed manus of Diprotodon compared with tracing of carving of supposed Diprotodon track at Yunta (× 1/8).