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Kakadu National Park: Rock Art

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

Introduction

Kakadu National Park, located in the top end of the Northern Territory of Australia, covers 19,804 km2of diverse tropical ecosystems. This vast area includes mangroves, mudflats and floodplains, major rivers, savanna woodlands, monsoon forests, sandstone escarpments, and rocky plateaus. Most importantly, Kakadu is an Aboriginal living cultural landscape. There are many different clan groups within Kakadu with each caring for their “country” and sharing in joint management of the park with the Commonwealth Government of Australia. Kakadu is universally acknowledged as one of the world’s great rock art provinces. Internationally recognized through UNESCO World Heritage List for both its cultural and natural heritage, Kakadu has one of Australia’s largest concentrations of rock art sites. Rock art played a vital role in Kakadu, achieving world heritage status, with particular mention made of the antiquity, concentration, temporal span, and diversity of the art as well as...

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Correspondence to Sally Kate May .

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May, S.K., Tacon, P.S.C. (2014). Kakadu National Park: Rock Art. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2241

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2241

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