Aboriginal strategies for hiding meaning in rock art in Barunga region, Northern Territory,Australia

For the conference series "Parlando di Arte Rupestre" (Talking about rock art), Claire Smith and Gary Jackson, Flinders University, with Barunga community present: "Aboriginal strategies for hiding meaning in rock art in the Barunga region, Northern Territory, Australia". This presentation addresses the idea that the control of secret information in rock art sites is determined by site visibility and location. We discuss additional methods used by Aboriginal people in the Barunga region of the Northern Territory to hide secret meanings, as well as their ways to control access to the sites. Our presentation shows that hidden meanings are not necessarily related to the low visibility of the art and hidden locations, since cultures have many other ways of hiding meaning or places beyond the degree of visibility. Some of the ideas discussed in this presentation were published at: I. Domingo, C. Smith, G. Jackson and D. Roman. 2020 Hidden sites, hidden images, hidden meanings: does the location and visibility of motifs and sites correlate to restricted and/or open access? Journal of Archaeological Theory and Method 27:699-722. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-020-09... II. Hidden in plain sight: the archaeological landscape of Mithaka Country, south-west Queensland https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.31