The seascape in stone: Archaeological and cosmological assessment of maritime motifs in Yanyuwa ‘rock art’

Relationships between landscape and motifs have featured in ‘rock art’ research worldwide. Yet there has been comparatively little exploration of rock art’s significance in constructing maritime lifeways. This paper uses a dataset of 3183 images from 65 island and coastal rock art sites in Yanyuwa Sea Country in northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria to investigate how marine-centric concepts linked to rock art are applied to inscribe a seascape. To do this, we integrate a formal, style-based spatial analysis with knowledge shared by the Yanyuwa community over a 45+ year period. Yanyuwa understandings demonstrate how maritime imagery is implicated in a web of connections involving kinship, ceremony, spiritual beings, and the ancestral realm. Integrating western scientific and Indigenous approaches to rock art interpretation highlights how characterizing maritime-themed motifs goes beyond a consideration of iconographic content. This archaeological engagement with Yanyuwa rock art provides a framework for how deeper interpretations of Indigenous seascapes can be realised.