!08 



Aboriginal Rock Paintings on the South 

 Para, Barossa Rangks. 



By E. C. Stirling, M.D., F.R.S. 



Plates III. and IV. 



[Read August 5, 1902.] 



Like the Australian aborigines themselves, their handiwork, 

 that cannot receive the protecting shelter of a museum, 

 must in the nature of things disappear, and thus it seems de- 

 sirable to lose no opportunity of preserving a pictorial record 

 of such perishable objects as their rock paintings. With this 

 view, I submit to the notice of the Society a record of a few 

 such drawings found in two rock shelters, on the Yatalunga 

 estate, in the hills to the north-east of Adelaide. Aboriginal 

 drawings of the same general character as those to be men- 

 tioned have been described and figured from various localities 

 in South Australia. The Horn Exipedition met with several 

 series in the MacDonnell Ranges and their outliers, many of 

 which are reproduced in its report (1) ; others appear in the 

 report of the Elder Expedition (2) ; and Mr. Worsnop's book 

 (3) contains a number of them, derived from various sources. 

 A good account of these paintings, with many figures, is con- 

 tained in the recent comprehensive book of Messrs. Spencer 

 .and Gillen (4). Similar drawings from various parts of Aus- 

 tralia have been recorded in the scientific publications of the 

 other States, and the journals and reiports of many explorers 

 and travellers have frequently contained allusions to their 

 ■existence. 



So far as I am aware, however, the drawings now to be 

 noticed are the only ones that have been reported from the 

 near neighbourhood of Adelaide, though the adjacent ranges 

 supply many shelters or protected rock surfaces such as com- 

 mend themselves to the natives for their artistic purposes. 

 The Yatalunga drawings must have been known to the early 



(1) Report on the work of the Horn Scientific Exploring Expedition, 

 Part IV. , Anthropology, 1S96. 



(2) Trans. Royal Soc, S.A., vol. iv., p. 237. 



(3) Prehistoric Arts, Manufactures, Works, Weapons, &e., of the Abori- 

 gines of Australia, Adelaide, 1897. 



(4) Native Tribes of Central Australia, 1899. 



