Rock art shows that external pressures on populations can engender cooperation rather than conflict.

What is it about?

This analysis of Australian Aboriginal rock art in the contact period demonstrates how Aboriginal people from different countries worked together to pressure important cultural knowledge when faced with the pressure of European colonisation. Available at: https://flinders.academia.edu/ClaireSmith

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Why is it important?

The data speak to a fundamental question in archaeology: relationships between population movements and the transmission of ideas. The critical point for archaeologists is that population displacement was characterized by cooperation between Aboriginal peoples, rather than conflict, in the face of a powerful external force.

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