The Use of Natural Features in the Rock Art of Ngaut Ngaut (Devon Downs), South Australia, and Beyond

This brief report provides some additional points of interest in relation to the rock art of Ngaut Ngaut (Devon Downs), South Australia - a mid to late Holocene heritage complex (see Roberts et al. 2014 in a previous edition of Rock Art Research for a more detailed background). In this paper we outline the use of natural features in petroglyph production at Ngaut Ngaut in order to provide additional baseline contexts for the rock art of the mid-Murray in South Australia as well as comparative examples for national and international case studies.As we outline in Roberts et al. (2014), the Ngaut Ngaut heritage complex is significant for many reasons; however, in relation to rock art studies this place is important as it was arguably the first in Australia to reveal rock art in an excavation (conducted in 1929 by Hale and Tindale) (see Hale and Tindale 1930; Layton 1992: 213; Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999: 367; Roberts and MACAI 2012; Bednarik 2013). The site also provides one of the few instances where approximate 'dating of rock art by excavation' has been possible worldwide (Bednarik 2013). Additional future accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C analysis may now also be possible to assist in further refining our understanding of the rock art chronology at Ngaut Ngaut, due to the recent investigation of the dark rock coating which covers some of the rocksheiter surfaces (see Roberts et al. in press).Although the focus of this paper is Ngaut Ngaut, we also illustrate the comparative use of natural features in rock art from around the world. Such global examples highlight an apparently universal human phenomenon and means of exploring the natural world which 'speaks of human relationships to places and spaces' (Tacon 1999: 34) - and perhaps relates even more broadly to the automatic responses in the visual systems of humans (e.g. see Bednarik 1998,2008; Feliks 1998; Watson 2008: 43; Achrati 2013 for additional discussion) - although as Bradshaw (1998: 125) cautions we must always acknowledge that 'human image making may have had unrelated origins ... that it may have occurred independently' and 'in many different places at different times'.Natural features have been symbolically exploited not only on their own, but also in rock art and other artistic forms in the following ways:* Ascribing mythological or other symbolic significance, although there need not be any signs of anthropic modification (or similarly making no distinction between cultural and natural rock markings);* Inspiring the production of rock markings in adjacent locations or on the body;* Marking or accentuating natural boundaries; and* Incorporation into particular artistic motifs or designs.Below we will explore some of these aspects as they relate to the rock art at Ngaut Ngaut and consider related examples in a global context. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a thorough global analysis we do attempt to provide a range of relevant examples, albeit that they are separated in space and time. The inclusion of such a variety of examples is by no means intended to further the issue of the inappropriate use of Australian ethnography in other art contexts (e.g. Upper Palaeolithic Europe - see Whitley 2011: 319 for an overview) but rather to emphasise the use of natural features in rock art as being a universal phenomenon as noted above. Indeed, whilst the causes for the production of some rock art may be shared amongst human groups and in differing time periods, their meanings are likely to be 'much more cultural, complex and mediated' (Faulstich 2008: 48). As such, the inclusion of any ethnographic accounts is simply to illustrate the variety of cultural meanings attached to the examples thereby providing a more textured account.Natural features as inspiration for rock markingsThe use of natural features and other natural phenomena, such as animal tracks and scratch marks, as inspiration for rock art is well-established in Australia and elsewhere (e. …