Written by Carmelo Amalfi Wednesday, 18 November 2009 14:27
INDIGENOUS Australian art provides a new source of information about how early Australians interpreted the night sky, according to a new study by CSIRO astrophysicist Professor Ray Norris.
Prof Norris, who has spent the past few years investigating indigenous astronomy, says many artworks depicted astronomical concepts and objects.
One of the art pieces he refers to is a “star map” from Arnhem Land. Professor Norris says the map shows Orion and Scorpius in a straight line.
”It is not a literal picture of the sky,” he says.
“It is a symbolic map – the stars are all there but they are straightened to fit the painting.”
He says in areas such as Sydney and Perth, from where early Australians once watched the sky, “the culture has been badly damaged”.
“We can look at their art and, with local communities, maybe resurrect some of the culture that has been lost.”
Prof Norris said many sites have been recorded but few have been reliably surveyed, with most records consisting of no more than a hand sketch.
A crescent shape may be drawn by an archaeologist as a boomerang and by an astronomer as a crescent moon.
He says an unbiased, comprehensive photographic study was needed, particularly for future generations who may never see many of the astronomical sites now exposed to erosion and damage.
“Soon after the British arrived, many of those people (with knowledge of the sky) died mainly because their food sources were taken away or were excluded from where they hunted, in some cases there was deliberate killing.”
The other part of his work is to study the artefacts of Indigenous Australians whose cultures were badly damaged by the arrival of Europeans more than 200 years ago.
Professor Norris said one of the goals of the study was to find evidence to confirm that Indigenous Australians were the world’s first astronomers.
