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I have a friend on a property with cave art here in the hunter valley of Australia. We really don't do enough to preserve it at all. He's responsible and ensure

I have a friend on a property with cave art here in the hunter valley of Australia. We really don't do enough to preserve it at all. He's responsible and ensures no harm but it's still weird to own private land with 10k+ year old art and have no one really give a damn about it. Compare it to European attitudes, eg. Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstruction. We really do take 10k+ year old history for granted here.

cm2187 4y ago
I presume the first thing to do is to record a high res 3d scan and photos of the cave, as vandals aren't the only threat (natural elements).
- ars 4y ago
  At least for the cave in the article it's thousands of square meters of art. The art looks like parallel lines made by dragging fingers over the surface. I guess you could take some pictures, but it's not the kind of art that really needs high res 3d scans. In this case it's more the concept of "there was a human that did something here a very long time ago", rather than how the art itself looks. The vandalism only covered a small portion of it, but I suspect the vandals didn't even realize they were overwriting anything, since it's really not very obvious as art - it just looks like lines.
wiseelder932 4y ago
Is it possible that the teenagers did not know that the "scratchings" (for lack of a better term) were actually ancient and wise and sacred and enlightened aboriginal art?
- jpgvm 4y ago
  If you mean the case in the article? Almost no chance. The drawings were deep in the tunnel system which itself is essentially in the middle of nowhere.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  > The vandals forced their way past barbed wire and dug under a steel gate to get into the Koonalda Caves I’m going to say they had some strong clues.
  - wiseelder932 4y ago
    That's not my point. Yes they were aware of the cave. But they wrote something over wavy lines in limestone that could actually pass for a natural feature. In any case yes it's probably stupid for them to write something there without consulting with their elders.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  Why would that matter?
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a fridge through or drive through with a wheelchair). Buildings like this: https://www.zurnal24.si/media/img/83/c3/35bf6005bfff08c83654.jpeg https://www.zurnal24.si/media/img/83/c3/35bf6005bfff08c83654... More photos: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/ne-smemo-narediti-fasade-ker-je-blok-kulturna-dediscina-387971 https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/ne-smemo-narediti-fasade-k...
- TheNorthman 4y ago
  what makes a building socialist?
  - astine 4y ago
    Buildings in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact contries during the Cold War were often constructed with an ideological bent in mind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_...
  - chimineycricket 4y ago
    Microdistrict type buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict
    - bombolo 4y ago
      Microdistricts were good… new stuff is usually an unplanned cash grab.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    built by the government during socialist times, and built in the same was as pretty much all the other socialist buildings were built (reinforced concrete or from premade concrete blocks). A bunch of our cities were built during the socialist era, and pretty much all the buildings look the same, and some things (especially parking garages) are actually the same all over the country.
jojobas 4y ago
The law is such that if an immovable aboriginal artifact is found on your property you're shit out of luck. You become responsible to keep it intact, you have to allow access to various people and likely be limited in your land use, all with no compensation. This creates an incentive to destroy such artifacts (i.e. scarred trees, petroglyphs etc) and not tell anyone. It also exists in a wider context of "history wars", where federal institutions take sides on quite controversial subjects, further alienating the stereotypical farmers.
kevinkeller 4y ago
I think it's because of a sense of ownership and belonging (or lack thereof). People who made the art in Lascaux are, in a distant sense, ancestors of the present-day French. Most of Australia is of British ancestry, transplanted in the past few hundred years. The majority of them, including their government, obviously don't consider the Aboriginal heritage as their own.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- akudha 4y ago
  I dunno, if I had a property with art that is 10,000 years old, I will try my best to preserve it. Regardless of whether they were made by my ancestors or not, because it doesn’t matter. It was made by humans. So in a way, they are my ancestors, whether they spoke French or some other language doesn’t matter to me
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
    The point is you’re in the enlightened minority.
    - goodSteveramos 4y ago
      No most Europeans, including those in Australia care deeply about cultural preservation. In this case every European involved, the government, media and owner of the land all do. The odd thing is how the aboriginal people have done nothing to preserve this art for thousands of years. I would be curious to know if the previous vandals mentioned in TFA were leaving European or aboriginal names behind. One of the complaints the aboriginals had was lack of access to the cave. Europeans may be the ones more interested in preserving the ancient markings, the non-Europeans may be the ones more interested in making their own. Can anyone blame them?
      - 8note 4y ago
        Europeans everywhere care mostly about owning and profiting off of artwork, preservation of a work is important insofar as it allows Europeans to hoard the art and sell it, or grant prestige to their museums and galleries compared to other museums and galleries. The cultural preservation is utterly unwanted - that's why things like the Benin bronzes have been forever broken and split up amongst Europeans in pieces, rather than retained as the one cultural work of being a history book for people to actually use in benin. The same happens with Europeans in British Columbia. Rather than cultural preservation, the Europeans put totem poles on metal brackets to make sure they stay up forever and will never fall down, removing the intended time component of falling down, decaying, and being made anew. The intention of Europeans is to remove the cultural component and traditions, and turn it into an ownable artifact.
triggercut 4y ago
We need more of your mate. Too many people willing to clear willy-nilly to make a buck around.
kevinkeller 4y ago
> Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstruction. Video by Tom Scott, that talks about the similar Chauvet cave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zJbi9YatcA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zJbi9YatcA Poignant explanation of why such pre-historic art is important: > It shows that they have a life, they do have culture, they do have art as we do today. They may not have done it for the very same reason, but they do have it. And it shows that they do not just merely survive, they live.
eastAligned 4y ago
Its kind of a false equality. European remains are interesting because they are from a point that the people grew past, a flash in our culture. Aboriginal artifacts are equivalent to aborigines when they were encountered (even as they are now to an extent). I can go look at an Aboriginal, they are nothing special, there is no mystery to their leavings.

cm2187 4y ago

I presume the first thing to do is to record a high res 3d scan and photos of the cave, as vandals aren't the only threat (natural elements).

ars 4y ago
At least for the cave in the article it's thousands of square meters of art. The art looks like parallel lines made by dragging fingers over the surface. I guess you could take some pictures, but it's not the kind of art that really needs high res 3d scans. In this case it's more the concept of "there was a human that did something here a very long time ago", rather than how the art itself looks. The vandalism only covered a small portion of it, but I suspect the vandals didn't even realize they were overwriting anything, since it's really not very obvious as art - it just looks like lines.

wiseelder932 4y ago

Is it possible that the teenagers did not know that the "scratchings" (for lack of a better term) were actually ancient and wise and sacred and enlightened aboriginal art?

jpgvm 4y ago
If you mean the case in the article? Almost no chance. The drawings were deep in the tunnel system which itself is essentially in the middle of nowhere.
sokoloff 4y ago
> The vandals forced their way past barbed wire and dug under a steel gate to get into the Koonalda Caves I’m going to say they had some strong clues.
- wiseelder932 4y ago
  That's not my point. Yes they were aware of the cave. But they wrote something over wavy lines in limestone that could actually pass for a natural feature. In any case yes it's probably stupid for them to write something there without consulting with their elders.
hgsgm 4y ago
Why would that matter?

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a fridge through or drive through with a wheelchair). Buildings like this: https://www.zurnal24.si/media/img/83/c3/35bf6005bfff08c83654.jpeg https://www.zurnal24.si/media/img/83/c3/35bf6005bfff08c83654... More photos: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/ne-smemo-narediti-fasade-ker-je-blok-kulturna-dediscina-387971 https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/ne-smemo-narediti-fasade-k...

TheNorthman 4y ago
what makes a building socialist?
- astine 4y ago
  Buildings in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact contries during the Cold War were often constructed with an ideological bent in mind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_...
- chimineycricket 4y ago
  Microdistrict type buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict
  - bombolo 4y ago
    Microdistricts were good… new stuff is usually an unplanned cash grab.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  built by the government during socialist times, and built in the same was as pretty much all the other socialist buildings were built (reinforced concrete or from premade concrete blocks). A bunch of our cities were built during the socialist era, and pretty much all the buildings look the same, and some things (especially parking garages) are actually the same all over the country.

jojobas 4y ago

The law is such that if an immovable aboriginal artifact is found on your property you're shit out of luck. You become responsible to keep it intact, you have to allow access to various people and likely be limited in your land use, all with no compensation. This creates an incentive to destroy such artifacts (i.e. scarred trees, petroglyphs etc) and not tell anyone. It also exists in a wider context of "history wars", where federal institutions take sides on quite controversial subjects, further alienating the stereotypical farmers.

kevinkeller 4y ago

I think it's because of a sense of ownership and belonging (or lack thereof). People who made the art in Lascaux are, in a distant sense, ancestors of the present-day French. Most of Australia is of British ancestry, transplanted in the past few hundred years. The majority of them, including their government, obviously don't consider the Aboriginal heritage as their own.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
akudha 4y ago
I dunno, if I had a property with art that is 10,000 years old, I will try my best to preserve it. Regardless of whether they were made by my ancestors or not, because it doesn’t matter. It was made by humans. So in a way, they are my ancestors, whether they spoke French or some other language doesn’t matter to me
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
  The point is you’re in the enlightened minority.
  - goodSteveramos 4y ago
    No most Europeans, including those in Australia care deeply about cultural preservation. In this case every European involved, the government, media and owner of the land all do. The odd thing is how the aboriginal people have done nothing to preserve this art for thousands of years. I would be curious to know if the previous vandals mentioned in TFA were leaving European or aboriginal names behind. One of the complaints the aboriginals had was lack of access to the cave. Europeans may be the ones more interested in preserving the ancient markings, the non-Europeans may be the ones more interested in making their own. Can anyone blame them?
    - 8note 4y ago
      Europeans everywhere care mostly about owning and profiting off of artwork, preservation of a work is important insofar as it allows Europeans to hoard the art and sell it, or grant prestige to their museums and galleries compared to other museums and galleries. The cultural preservation is utterly unwanted - that's why things like the Benin bronzes have been forever broken and split up amongst Europeans in pieces, rather than retained as the one cultural work of being a history book for people to actually use in benin. The same happens with Europeans in British Columbia. Rather than cultural preservation, the Europeans put totem poles on metal brackets to make sure they stay up forever and will never fall down, removing the intended time component of falling down, decaying, and being made anew. The intention of Europeans is to remove the cultural component and traditions, and turn it into an ownable artifact.

triggercut 4y ago

We need more of your mate. Too many people willing to clear willy-nilly to make a buck around.

kevinkeller 4y ago

> Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstruction. Video by Tom Scott, that talks about the similar Chauvet cave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zJbi9YatcA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zJbi9YatcA Poignant explanation of why such pre-historic art is important: > It shows that they have a life, they do have culture, they do have art as we do today. They may not have done it for the very same reason, but they do have it. And it shows that they do not just merely survive, they live.

eastAligned 4y ago

Its kind of a false equality. European remains are interesting because they are from a point that the people grew past, a flash in our culture. Aboriginal artifacts are equivalent to aborigines when they were encountered (even as they are now to an extent). I can go look at an Aboriginal, they are nothing special, there is no mystery to their leavings.