Griffith University

Professor, School of Humanities

Contact details for Professor Paul Taçon

Professional page for Professor Paul Taçon

Research expertise

• Aboriginal art
• Aboriginal material culture
• Anthropology - art / religion
• Anthropology - cultural evolution
• Archaeology - hunter gatherers
• Body art
• Indigenous art - contemporary (Australia)
• Indigenous perspectives - the past
• Landscape archaeology
• Material culture
• Museums
• Palaeoart / rock art
• Photography - the landscape (Australia)
• Photography / landscape archaeology
• Rock art / palaeoart

Current teaching areas

• Rock Art in the 21^st Century

Publications

For a full list of publications please go to Professional page for Professor Paul Taçon

Journal articles (2005-):

• 2005. Taçon, P.S.C. Modern human behaviour and the implications of small-bodied hominin finds from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Before Farming 2005/4 (2):1-6.
• 2005. Taçon, P.S.C. The world of ancient ancestors: Australian Aboriginal caves and other realms within rock.  Expedition 47(3):37-42.
• 2006. Chippindale, C. and P.S.C. Taçon. What’s in a word, what’s in a hyphen? A modest proposal that we abandon the words ‘petroglyph’ and ‘pictograph’, and hyphenate ‘rock-painting’, ‘rock-engraving’, ‘rock-art’ among the words we use (with comments and reply). Rock Art Research 23(2):254-60.
• 2006. Sauvet, G., Layton, R.H., Lessen-Erz, T., Taçon, P.S.C. and A. Wlodarczyk. La structure iconographique d’un art rupestre est-elle une clef pour son interprétation? Zephyrus 59:97-110.
• 2006a. Taçon, P.S.C. Behaviorally modern at 300,000 BP: was my ancestor brighter than yours? Before Farming 2006/2 (3):1-9.
• 2006b. Taçon, P.S.C. Shamanism and rock art interpretation. Before Farming 2006/4 (6):1-3.
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C., Kelleher, M., Brennan, W., Hooper, S. and D. Pross. Wollemi petroglyphs, NSW, Australia: an unusual assemblage with rare motifs. Rock Art Research 23(2):227-38.
• 2006. Ward, I.A.K., Fullagar, R.L.K., Boer-Mah, T., Head, L.M., Taçon, P.S.C. and K. Mulvaney. Comparison of sedimentation and occupation histories inside and outside rock shelters, Keep-River Region, northwestern Australia.  Geoarchaeology 21(1):1-27.
• 2007. Smith, M.A., Taçon, P.S.C., Curnoe, D. and A. Thorne. Human dispersal into Australasia. Science 315:597-598.
• 2007. Taçon, P.S.C. and C. Chippindale. Rock-writing, picture-writing, petroglyphs, rock-art; and the importance of the hyphen. Rock Art Research 24(1): 126-127.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C. Doodles, rock art and arousal: an alternative to the entoptic explanation. Rock Art Research 25(1):52-54.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C. Rainbow colour and power among the Waanyi of northwest Queensland.  Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18(2):163-176.
• 2009. Chippindale, C., David, B. and P.S.C. Taçon. Memes and rock-art: an unproven and unpromising approach. Rock Art Research 26(1):22-23.
• 2009. Sauvet, G., Layton, R.H., Lessen-Erz, T., Taçon, P.S.C. and A. Wlodarczyk. Thinking with animals in Upper Palaeolithic rock art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3):319-336.
• 2010. Curnoe, D. and P.S.C. Taçon. A man on the rim. Before Farming 2010/3 article 4:1-2.
• 2010. Langley, M. and P.S.C. Taçon. The age of Australian rock art: a review. Australian Archaeology 71:70-73.
• 2010. May, S.K., Taçon, P.S.C., Wesley, D. and M. Travers. Painting History: Indigenous observations and depictions of the ‘other’ in northwestern Arnhem Land, Australia. Australian Archaeology 71:57-65.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C. Animated animism: what does it actually tell us? Rock Art Research 27(1):77-78.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C. Neanderthals and us: conflicting new interpretations on our relationship to each other. Before Farming 2010/3 article 2:1-10.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., Boivin, N. Hampson, J., Blinkhorn, J., Korisettar, R. and M. Petraglia. New rock art discoveries in the Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Antiquity 84(324):335-350.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., Langley, M., May, S.K., Lamilami, R., Brennan, W. and D. Guse. Ancient bird stencils in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. Antiquity 84(324):416-427.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., Li, G., Yang, D., May, S.K., Liu, H., Aubert, M., Ji, X., Curnoe, D. and A.I.R. Herries.  Naturalism, nature and questions of style in Jinsha River rock art, northwest Yunnan, China. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20(1):67-86.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., May, S.K., Fallon, S.J., Travers, M., Wesley, D. and R. Lamilami. A minimum age for early depictions of Southeast Asian praus in the rock art of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Australian Archaeology 71:1-10.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., Sauffi, M.S. and I. Datan. New engravings discovered at Santubong, Sarawak, Malaysia. The Sarawak Museum Journal 67 (88):105-121.
• 2011. Mokhtar, S. and P.S.C. Taçon. The recent rock drawings of the Lenggong Valley, Perak, Malaysia. Antiquity 85 (328):459-475.
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C., Brennan, W. and R. Lamilami. Rare and curious thylacine depictions from Wollemi National Park, New South Wales and Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.  In J. Specht and R. Torrence (eds.), Changing Perspectives in Australian Archaeology.  Technical Reports of the Australian Museum, Online 23(11):165-174 (doi:10.3853/j.1835-4211.23.2011.1576).
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C., Langley, M., May, S.K., Lamilami, R., Brennan, W. and D. Wesley. A bird in the hand: response to Franklin and Szabo. Antiquity 85(327): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgal/tacon327.
• 2011/12. Taçon, P.S.C., Aubert, M., Gang, L., Yang, D., Liu, H., May, S.K., Fallon, S., Ji, X., Curnoe, D. and A.I.R. Herries. Uranium-series age estimates for rock art in southwest China. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(2):492-499 and Doi:10.1016/j.jas.2011.10.004.
• In press. Curnoe, D., Ji, X., Herries, A.I.R., Bai, K., Taçon, P.S.C., Bao, Z., Fink, D., Zhu, Y., Hellstrom, J., Luo, Y., Cassis, G., Su, B., Wroe, S., Hong, S., Parr, W.C.H., Huang, S. and N. Rogers. Human remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of southwest China suggest a complex evolutionary history for East Asians. PLoS ONE (submitted 20 December 2011; due February 2012).
• In press. Ji, X., Curnoe, D., Bai, K., Herries, A., Bao, Z., Fink, D., Luo, Q., Helstrom, J., Zhu, Y. and P.S.C. Taçon. New investigations of the Maludong palaeoanthropological locality, Mengzi County, Yunnan Province. Acta Anthropolgia Sinica (accepted August 2010).

Books/journals edited:

Book chapters (2005- ):

• 2005. Taçon, P.S.C. Marks on and of land: the relationship of rock and bark painting to people, places and the ancestral past.  In Kaufmann, C. (ed.), 2005. “rarrk” John Mawurndjul journey through time in northern Australia, pp. 160-165. Museum Tinguely and Schwabe Verlag, Basel.
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. Enduring rock art: ancient traditions, contemporary expressions. In J. Ryan (ed.), Land Marks, pp. 91-95. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
• 2007. Taçon, P.S.C. Rock-art research for the 21st Century: bringing art, science and people together. In J. Deacon (ed.), African rock art: the future of Africa’s past, pp.132-139. Trust for African Rock Art, Nairobi.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C. Marks of possession: the archaeology of territory and cross-cultural encounter in Australia and South Africa. In B. David and J. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of landscape archaeology, pp.218-227.  Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C., Kelleher, M., King, G. and W. Brennan. Eagle’s Reach: a focal point for past and present social identity within the northern Blue Mountains World heritage area, New South Wales, Australia.  In I. Domingo Sanz, D. Fiore and S.K. May (eds.), Archaeologies of art: time, place and identity, pp.195-214. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C. and C. Chippindale. Changing places: ten thousand years of north Australian rock-art transformation. In D. Papagianni, H. Maschner and R. Layton (eds.), Time and change: archaeological and anthropological perspectives on the long-term in hunter-gatherer societies, pp.73-94. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C. Identifying ancient religious thought and iconography; problems of definition, preservation and interpretation. In C. Renfrew and I. Morley (eds.), Becoming human: innovation in material and spiritual cultures, pp.61-73. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C. The creativity centre: where art meets science. In C. Volkenandt and C. Kaufmann (eds.), Between Indigenous Australia and Europe: John Marwurndjul, pp.211-216. Aboriginal Studies Press/Reimer, Canberra & Berlin.  
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C. Hunter and emu.  In. F. Cubillo and W. Caruana (eds.), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art collection highlights, p.113. National Art Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C. Identifying ancient sacred landscapes in Australia: from physical to social. In R.W. Preucel,and S.A. Mrozowski (eds.), Contemporary Archaeology in theory: the new pragmatism, pp. 77-91. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester.
• 2010. Taçon, P.S.C., Chapple, R.S., Merson, J., Ramp, D., Brennan, W., King, G. and A. Tasire. Aboriginal rock art depictions of fauna: What can they tell us about the natural history of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area?  In D. Lunney, P. Hutchings and D. Hochuli (eds.), The Natural history of Sydney, pp. 58-73. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Sydney.
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C. Special places and images on rock; 50,000 years of Indigenous engagement with Australian landscapes. In J. Anderson (ed.), Cambridge companion to Australian art, pp. 11-21. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
• In press. Blinkhorn, J., Boivin, N., Taçon, P.S.C. and M.D. Petraglia. Rock art research in India: historical approached and recent theoretical directions. In J. McDonald and P. Veth (eds.), A companion to rock art. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester (accepted July 2010).
• In press. May, S., Domingo, I. and P.S.C. Taçon. Arte rupestre de contacto: la versión Indígena de los encuentros interculturales en el noroeste de la Tierra de Arnhem (Australia). In F. Berrojalbiz (ed.), The vitality of the Indigenous voices; rock art of the contact and in colonial societies (accepted May 2010).
• In press. Taçon, P.S.C. A visit to Injalak twenty years ago. In S. May and M. Garde (eds.), Injalak. Green Poles Press, Melbourne (accepted March 2006).
• In press. Taçon, P.S.C. Presenting rock-art through digital film: recent Australian examples. In D. Morris (ed.), Presenting rock art, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek (accepted May 2006).
• In press. Taçon, P.S.C., Brennan, W., Hooper, S., Kelleher, M. and D. Pross. Differential cave and rock-shelter use during the Pleistocene and Holocene.  In H. Moyes (ed.), Journeys into the dark zone: a cross cultural perspective on caves as sacred spaces. University of Colorado Press, Boulder (accepted July 2010; due December 2011).
• In press. Taçon, P.S.C., Paterson, A., Ross, J. and S. May. Picturing change and changing pictures: contact period rock art of Australia. In J. McDonald and P. Veth (eds.), A companion to rock art. Wiley- Blackwell, Chichester (accepted August 2010).
• In press. Taçon, P.S.C. and N.H. Tan. Recent rock art research in South East Asia. In P.Bahn and N. Franklin (eds.), Rock art news of the world 4. Oxbow Books, Oxford. (accepted March 2011).

Other publications (2005- ):

• 2005a. Taçon, P.S.C. Chains of connection. Griffith REVIEW Edition 9 – Up North: Myths, Threats and Enchantment, 1-7. (http://www3.griffith.edu.au/01/griffithreview/past_editions.php?id=201)
• 2005b. Taçon, P.S.C. Review of Thomas Heyd and John Clegg’s ‘Aesthetics and rock art’, Nature Australia 28(6):76.
• 2005. Taçon, P.S.C., Brennan, W., Hooper, S., Kelleher, M. and D. Pross. 2005. Greater Wollemi: a new Australian rock-art area bordering Sydney.  International Organisation of Rock Art (INORA) Newsletter 43:1-6.
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. A statement of identity. On Line opinion: Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate. April, article 4321:1-4. (http:www.onlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=4321)
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. Comment on Derek Hodgson and Patricia A. Helvenston’s ‘The emergence of the representation of animals in palaeoart’ (with reply). Rock Art Research 23(2):247-53.
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. Eagle’s Reach. DIG 8(4):33.
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. My body, my art. On Line opinion: Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate. April, article 4322:1-4. (http:www.onlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=4322)
• 2006. Taçon, P.S.C. Panel Discussion. openmuseumjournal 8:article 8:1-23 (http://amol.org.au/omj/volome8/volume8_index.asp)
• 2007. Taçon, P.S.C. Review of Robert Bednarik’s ‘Australian apocalypse: The story of Australia’’s greatest cultural monument’. Australian Archaeology 64(1):59-60.
• 2007. Taçon, P.S.C. and E. Maynard. Dogs in China may be food or friend.  In. M. Bekoff, ed., Encyclopaedia of human-animal relationships, pp.34-36. Greenwood Press, Westport.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C. History of neglect undermines us all. Sydney Morning Herald 53,257 (June 4, 2008):17.
• 2008. Taçon, P.S.C.  Review of Mike Pearson’s ‘“In comes I: performance, memory and landscape’.  Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 1(1):105-107.
• 2008. Saidin, M., Taçon, P.S.C., Yang, D., Nash, G., May, S.K. and Lewis, B. Illustrating the past: the rock art of Southeast Asia. Current World Archaeology 29:40-48.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C.  Review of James D. Keyser, George Poetschat and Michael M. Taylor’s (eds.) ‘Talking with the past: the ethnography of rock art’. Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 02(02):247-249.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C.  Review of Mike Donaldson and Kevin Kenneally’s (eds.) ‘Rock art of the Kimberley: proceedings of the Kimberley Society rock art seminar held at the University of Western Australia, Perth, 10 September 2005’. Australian Archaeology 68:77.
• 2011. Sukkham A., Taçon, P.S.C. and N.H. Tan. Rock art of Phrayanaga (Viking) Cave, southern Thailand: the illustration of ancient vessels.  The Museum of Underwater Archaeology http://www.themua.org/collections/items/show/1214
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C.  A precious cultural heritage faces an uncertain future. National Times, 31 May 2011 (www.smh.com.au/action/printArticle?id=2395384).
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C.  Ancient people’s fingerprint. The Australian Literary Review 6(9):10-11, 22.

Films:

• 2004. Taçon, P.S.C. and C. Payne. Rediscovering Aboriginal Wollemi. DVD, 15 minutes. Australian Museum, Sydney.
• 2005. Taçon, P.S.C. Journey to the land of the Eagle. DVD, 30 minutes, Griffith University, Gold Coast.
• 2008. May, S.K. and P.S.C. Taçon. Esther Remembers. DVD 31 minutes. Griffith University, Gold Coast.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C. Lamajugu: Gateway to Jinsha River rock art.  Archaeological Expedition October 2008. DVD 15 minutes. Griffith University. Gold Coast.
• 2009. Taçon, P.S.C. and S. Strong. Made in Malarrak. DVD 12 minutes. Griffith University, Gold Coast.
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C. and A. Strong. Djulirri: An Aboriginal library of encounter and experience. DVD 29 minutes. Griffith University, Gold Coast.
• 2011. Taçon, P.S.C. and A. Strong. Wollemi: a land inscribed with story. DVD 33.38 minutes. Griffith University, Gold Coast.