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Post by Chris M on Oct 15, 2013 0:36:56 GMT 10
I'm currently not seeing any images in this thread... dead links?
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Post by Anubis on Jun 1, 2014 22:42:03 GMT 10
Just came across this thread which particularly interested me. I hope no one will think its too forward of me to say that finding art work representing the Thylacine is not necessarily a rare event, at least in certain locations within Australia. I undertaken a number of back packing trips for up to 3 and a half weeks at a time to several very isolated locations in the northern Kimberley of WA. I do these trips for a number of reasons, one of which is to find rock art. Finding art is not difficult providing you are willing to make the effort and pick your locations. I have found 100s of sites and among these is art work that portray animals possessing many of the required features that make them possible Thylacine contenders (striped quadrupeds with pointed ears and snout and erect tails). Interestingly, some art work I've found has animals with stripes in the shoulder regions rather than the rump. Considering the potential age of the art work in this region, especially what are called animal in-fill, it is not too fanciful to consider the possibility that these are very likely to represent the Thylacine. Upon showing these photos to one of the local park rangers (who has been associated with Grahame Walsh, Mike Morwood and June Ross), who has also seen an incredible quantity of the art in the area, has no hesitation to agree. While in the area I was always hopeful of finding anything that may possibly be similar to Genyornis, but no such luck!!! That would have been gold. Consider the excitement if some one discovered art work of the Long-beaked Echidna (let alone a live one!!!). Anyway, I thought this may be of interest to people who were interested in this thread. If it is easy enough I'd be quite willing to attach a couple of my photos. A
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Post by vincent on Jun 1, 2014 23:00:23 GMT 10
... I'd be quite willing to attach a couple of my photos.A Yes, I'd like to see some photos. A picture is worth a thousand words.
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Post by youcantry on Jun 2, 2014 13:36:00 GMT 10
Hi Anubis,
If you need help attaching photos to the forum, let us know. Several people on here help others out.
Chris.
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Post by Ian Thomas on Jun 2, 2014 15:40:32 GMT 10
Just came across this thread which particularly interested me. I hope no one will think its too forward of me to say that finding art work representing the Thylacine is not necessarily a rare event, at least in certain locations within Australia. I undertaken a number of back packing trips for up to 3 and a half weeks at a time to several very isolated locations in the northern Kimberley of WA. I do these trips for a number of reasons, one of which is to find rock art. Finding art is not difficult providing you are willing to make the effort and pick your locations. I have found 100s of sites and among these is art work that portray animals possessing many of the required features that make them possible Thylacine contenders (striped quadrupeds with pointed ears and snout and erect tails). Interestingly, some art work I've found has animals with stripes in the shoulder regions rather than the rump. Considering the potential age of the art work in this region, especially what are called animal in-fill, it is not too fanciful to consider the possibility that these are very likely to represent the Thylacine. Upon showing these photos to one of the local park rangers (who has been associated with Grahame Walsh, Mike Morwood and June Ross), who has also seen an incredible quantity of the art in the area, has no hesitation to agree. While in the area I was always hopeful of finding anything that may possibly be similar to Genyornis, but no such luck!!! That would have been gold. Consider the excitement if some one discovered art work of the Long-beaked Echidna (let alone a live one!!!). Anyway, I thought this may be of interest to people who were interested in this thread. If it is easy enough I'd be quite willing to attach a couple of my photos. A that's seriously cool stuff Anubis. yeah, i'd sure like to see a few of yourr images if you are willing to share. i know there's a helluva lot of rock art carvings of tracks and feet in the outback. but there's not too much that shows the whole animal.
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Post by Anubis on Jun 2, 2014 20:07:49 GMT 10
Yeh...no problems about sharing some photos. I'm feeling a tad ignorant here, Chris, and not real familiar with uploading images, particularly being new to the forum (used to occasionally comment many years ago). Please provide some simple instructions about how to do so, plus whether there is a limit to the size of the photo. If I reduce to document or email sized formats (around 100 to 300 kb) hopefully I can load several photos. Let me know. I have never shared these photos in the past following advice I have received considering the potential sensitivity these have to certain individuals, but they are not achieving much sitting in my hard drive. Even Grahame Walsh shared, just didn't mention their actual sites, and I won't also. Most are from, simply, Mitchell River National Park. Thank you for your enthusiastic responses and hope you shall find them interesting.
Anubis
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Post by saggitarius on Jun 3, 2014 9:23:47 GMT 10
Do you want to run that past us again? When you say Mitchell River National Park are you talking about the Mitchell River in Gippsland? - Angusvale, Den of Nargun, Glenaladale area. Or is there some other Mitchell River National Park in the Kimberley.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 3, 2014 13:12:19 GMT 10
Just came across this thread which particularly interested me. I hope no one will think its too forward of me to say that finding art work representing the Thylacine is not necessarily a rare event, at least in certain locations within Australia.... A Welcome to the Quest, Anubis! I'm glad to hear you enjoy our scribblings. Yes, please, if you could possibly share some images with us, your gesture would be most appreciated. I'm certain every reader here would be very interested to see.
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Post by youcantry on Jun 3, 2014 13:54:50 GMT 10
I'm feeling a tad ignorant here, Chris, and not real familiar with uploading images, particularly being new to the forum (used to occasionally comment many years ago). Please provide some simple instructions about how to do so, plus whether there is a limit to the size of the photo. Hi Anubis, Unfortunately, uploading images can be a bit tricky if you're not used to it. And explaining the process makes it sound even more complicated. Probably the simplest way forward is if you can upload them somewhere else, like your Facebook account if you have one. Then when you can see the photo somewhere on the web, right-click it, choose "copy image location" (only if using firefox web browser) then come here and paste the image location into your post here (by holding the CTRL button on your keyboard then pressing the "V" button). That would be enough to get us started. If that's still too complicated, then maybe email them through to me and I will upload them for you. I will send you a private message with my email address. In the menu bar up top you should see a link that says "Messages" - click that to find my private message. (Ah. You don't have an account on the forum, so I can't send you a private message.) My address is *deleted*. I will remove my address from this post in a day or two.
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Post by Anubis on Jun 3, 2014 19:49:57 GMT 10
Youcantry has received my photos, and I appreciate his assistance, so hopefully they will appear shortly. I'm aware of the Mitchell River in Victoria, but the River I refer to is certainly in the far NW of WA. I hope people enjoy what they see, but please be aware that most of the images have been tested by a great deal of time and the harshness of the elements of the region.
A
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Post by youcantry on Jun 6, 2014 12:44:05 GMT 10
I meant to upload last night but got waylaid. Will do so asap - hopefully even this lunchtime
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Post by youcantry on Jun 6, 2014 12:58:33 GMT 10
Anubis asked me to upload his photos of Kimberly rock art. He wrote: OK, here are pretty well all my 'Thylacoid' photos (my name (yes, this word actually means a structure associated with chloroplasts, but give me a little licence!!) cos I will be a tad cautious in saying they are definite Thylacine-type animals, tho some are certainly highly likely contenders. When these go up on the forum site please be aware of a few things: - this is the first time I have shared these publicly. Once on the web they are no longer my own. So, for a bit of protection they have been significantly decreased in size
- everyone is welcome to make their own judgements. As I stated, I am not saying what they are, simply what they could be. There are more experienced people out there who can make better judgements
- the original artists could have been little better than any of us at drawing; consequently, I believe some of us extend a little too much liberty in our claims of interpreting what they are; personally, I find sometimes people are a little too romantic and find themselves actually saying what they would like them to be. Who knows whether the artists have represented the animals accurately. Artists over the world tend to have their own way of representing their own perspective. Look at the first English coloniser artists who painted our native animals and our vegetation! Accuracy abandoned!
- not all the animals are present in the art. Considering that some dating methods have been absolute dated the animal art forms within this region of the Kimberley at anything up to 30,000+ years old, some loss is inevitable. There are several valid publications and web sites that will provide verification of these time scales, perhaps some of the oldest art work in the world
- some of the animals don't possess stripes...so what! Again, perhaps these external details were intentionally omitted
Anyhow, enough said by me. Let the discussion now begin! On a final note for anybody who is interested: there are many claims associated with the art work of the Kimberley, especially surrounding the ages and interpretations of animal in-fill art and the Gwion Gwion/ Bradshaw images, not to mention the who were responsible for the artwork. The extinction of the Megafauna involves conjecture, argument and division...all healthy scientific debate. If I can encourage people to also pursue a little interest in the claims made by Grahame Walsh and his supporters, while considered lacking sufficient scientific support, sure has extremely interesting implications.
Thylacoid 1
Thylacoid 2
Thylacoid 3
Thylacoid 4
Thylacoid 5
Thylacoid 6
Thylacoid 7
Thylacoid 8
Thylacoid 9
Thylacoid 10
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 7, 2014 8:21:13 GMT 10
Thanks so much, Anubis, for taking the trouble to shanre these with us. Thanks too to Chris assistintg with the uploads. Kimberley rock art is truly fascinating, especially (to my mind) because of the insights it gives us into late Pleistocene times when so many of the megafauna and all human cousin species went extinct. I'm noddingly familiar with Walsh's work and some of the rather nasty controversy that continues to darken his reputation. Fwiw, his general hypothesis that population replacement occurred in prehsitoric Australia has been confirmed in recent years. Genetic research shows that the event took place at around 5000ya to 3000ya. The initial study (Redd and Stoneking) indicated that a previous population - among whom were possibly the Bradshaw creators? - was totally extirpated and left no genetic trace. But that work has since been revised and it's now thought that isolated remnants did linger on into the later Holocene. Which is what one would expect as it's hard to imagine a cataclysm so severe that all humans in Sahul could have been killed off in the space of a few hundred years during the 'event'. It's also established that the newcomers to Sahul were of Dravidian stock, just as I think(?) Walsh suggested. Correct me if wrong? In fact, I may have a reference that claims to have located the exact region of India where they came from: their descendants still live there, apparently. We've actually kicked these ideas around quite a bit on this forum, in times past. Here are some threads that I can find --> So yep, as you say, let the discussion begin!
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 7, 2014 8:37:35 GMT 10
As for these pictures you generously shared, they are fascinating! Did you happen to collect images that depict other fauna? Pity Genyornis was absent. What about Pleistocene macropods, or perhaps diprotodon?
We have had quite a lot of discussion about the MF and their extinction on our forum. Again, more threads that I can find -->
There are Questors far more knowledgeable than I whose views I hope we shall learn about soon!
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Post by anubis on Jun 7, 2014 19:16:03 GMT 10
Thanx TG...looking forward to reading through the many links you have provided. Always interested in the conversations and opinions regarding the history of the earlier human colonisation of this country. It has the potential to be a little more convoluted than what we may assume, but sometimes with insufficient evidence to support it. Personally, I like to think we may increasingly consider the possibility that humans may have reached this continent in excess of 60,000 yrs ago.... some people already have...for eg.. the implications behind the presence of the boab in our northwest is very peculiar indeed.
I do have a number of other photos of rock art work of a number of animals. However, at the moment, lets just see what others may think of the photo collection I have already provided. Anubis
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 8, 2014 7:12:54 GMT 10
I'd say it's doubtful that modern humans reached Sahul prior to about 45kya. At least that's the figure the palaeo record supports. On the other hand, Homo spp, the ones who were around long before H. sapiens, appear to have had the technical skill to construct boats or rafts for at least 1 million years. To me, it would be very, very surprising if they never reached Sahul, especially considering they were established virtually "off shore" for about that long, a million or more years.
I'll have a close look at your images and consult some refs I have before I stick my neck out with an opinion. As told, there are Questers much more knowledgeable than me!
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Post by youcantry on Jun 9, 2014 7:51:12 GMT 10
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Post by youcantry on Jun 9, 2014 7:55:40 GMT 10
Thylacoid 5 looks interesting to me. 5 toes on hind foot. Shape like echidna, wombat or diprotodon. Stripes on half of body plus head. Tail like ankylosaur. Something like a numbat. Weird.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 9, 2014 10:06:03 GMT 10
I'm leaning towards certain "thylacoleoish" thoughts myself, Chris. I want to enhance the images and draw some metrics before saying anything, but haven't had a chance to do so yet. Later today, hopefully?
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Post by anubis on Jun 9, 2014 16:09:17 GMT 10
That particular painting was approx. 18-20 inches in length (altho it was 2009 when I took the photo, so memory may be a tad incorrect and I didn't provide any scale for any of the images...sorry!). What I found interesting about this image was its forward directed forelimb, distinct yellow head and what appears the backward facing penis/testis. Of the images looking Thylacine-like, it was certainly the clearest, but whether this suggests it was the most recent? But, yes...all those toes! But whether this was a case of artistic license?? Believe me, once you have seen 100s of items of artwork in this region, you tend to wonder whether the artist borrowed a little on free expression at the expense of accuracy! Maybe they were also trying to say something in their interpretations? Many an artist tend to do so, no matter what the culture!
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Post by molloch on Jun 9, 2014 20:10:17 GMT 10
It is very hard to get intent out of an image this simplistic. Every culture, including the many Aboriginal cultures, have some artistic license and imagination features in their pieces as it does for every human. You can't take these images as being anatomically accurate or specific, and they are always retouched and sometimes re-engineered by future generations.
Backward facing penis and scrotum is normal in rock art depicting marsupials. This is more often emphasised, as I think I wrote in a previous post, because in marsupials the penis is between the anus and the scrotum and is backward facing, where as in non-marsupial mammals (except monotremes) it is usually the other way around (although it develops in all mammals in this configuration). Many Aboriginal paintings depict marsupials in this way, as you can see from your images above, or with obvious pouches for females. In monotremes, the testes are internalised, there is no scrotum. The penis and anus are in the same opening and the penis is again backward facing and bizarre.
I suspect the animal in image 1 might not be a marsupial, I think it could be a dingo? Image 5 is definitely a marsupial, not sure if it is a Thylacine, but it does look familiar. Image 6 is possibly a macropod. The rest look a lot like the Thylacine rock art images I have seen. I have a few unpublished ones that I can't share, but they are very similar.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 10, 2014 7:12:08 GMT 10
Thylacoid 8: I'd say this one (possibly) a fragment of a Thylacoleo representation. It's only the torso and the hind legs + tail. However, the animal's flanks are clearly striped and its pose is very similar to the image presented in Antiquity. The animal's barrel-chested outline seems more in keeping with what we know of Thylacoleo and contrasts with a Thylacine's more gracile build. I don't think the head at lower left has anything to do with the torso. There is a clear erasure as you can see from the extruded image. The head is that of a macropod, added later I'd say.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 10, 2014 7:19:32 GMT 10
Thylacoid #4 shows the same type of animal, quite possibly a Thylacoleo candidate on the basis of its striped flanks and similar posture to the Antiquity specimen. But it too has been defaced with its head & shoulders erased. It seems more schematic than #8 so perhaps not a naturalistic representation? Are two partial erasures due to natural erosion or deliberate defacement? For reasons we can only guess at? The pictures are clearly very old and so natural attrition is likely. Just seems curious two such images have had the head and shoulders lopped off in a similar manner. Perhaps a ritual of some sort, concerning Thylacoleo, in ages past? But that's only speculation.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 10, 2014 7:27:27 GMT 10
Thylacoid #3: There are multiple layers of animal pics superimposed, most them fragmented. One would need to see a higher res image in order to say anything meaningful.
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Post by molloch on Jun 10, 2014 8:28:30 GMT 10
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 10, 2014 10:01:42 GMT 10
Thanks, M. Ah yes, the question of the artist's intent. How can we know after thousands of years? And, of course, prehistoric art is not "art" in our modern sense at all.
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Post by vincent on Jun 11, 2014 2:53:46 GMT 10
Thylacoid #3: There are multiple layers of animal pics superimposed, most them fragmented. One would need to see a higher res image in order to say anything meaningful. I wonder what those newer techniques would yield, e.g., ultraviolet light, infrared, computer scans for reflectivity gradients, etc.
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Post by Thylacoleo Gal on Jun 11, 2014 7:10:41 GMT 10
Unfortunately, I doubt if Anubis was able to lug all that expensive gear around the rugged and remote Kimberleys!
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Post by vincent on Jun 11, 2014 10:13:23 GMT 10
Unfortunately, I doubt if Anubis was able to lug all that expensive gear around the rugged and remote Kimberleys! Well, TG, you're young and strong. You could volunteer to help Anubis carry that equipment.
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Post by anubis on Jun 11, 2014 19:23:02 GMT 10
All that expensive equipment? What? All I used was a Panasonic Lumix!! And a bucket load of spare batteries and SD cards! What you can do with the photos, and undoubtedly you've all done it, as has TG, is alter the brightness/contrast and colour settings to bring out otherwise detail difficult to see.
Yes, there are times when it is quite apparent that certain artworks have been intentionally 'vandalised' (and even this has occurred many 1000s of yrs ago by what appears to be still very early humans), but this tends to occur most frequently with the Bradshaw/ Gwion Gwion art. Otherwise, details are lost due to the harsh conditions over the millennia.
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