Comparing Australian Message Sticks and Sequentially Marked Objects of the Upper Palaeolithic: Problems and Opportunities

Engraved portable objects from Upper Palaeolithic and earlier sites are argued to be cognitive tools designed to store information for the purposes of calculation, record-keeping, or communication. This paper reviews the surprisingly long intellectual history of comparisons between these ancient objects and message sticks: marked graphic devices traditionally used for long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. I argue that, while such comparisons have often been misguided, more cautious applications of ethnographic analogy may yield useful insights. A systematic analysis of historical observations together with more recent fieldwork, indicate that Australian message sticks are primarily tools of social cognition, as opposed to cognition tout court, and rely on orality and other context to become meaningful. Further, the practice of message stick communication may help clarify ongoing problems in the interpretation of Upper Palaeolithic objects including their possible role in aggregation activities, the distinction between decoration and notation, and the interplay between graphic sequences and speech.