International Federation of Independent Rock Art Researchers Quarterly

No 27, June 2021, pp. 23 – xx. DOI: 10xxxx/zenodo.xxxxxxx

Copyright © 2021 IFIRAR and the Author(s) | All rights reserved

Dreamspace and Dreamtime:

Information Management and Ritual Behaviour
in Aboriginal Australia
George F. Steiner *

Abstract
Following a recent re-evaluation of evidence from an archaeological site in SE Australia, the
possibility of a 120 thousand years (ka) old human presence in the Fifth Continent has been
suggested. However, the commonly accepted date for the peopling of Australia remains within
the range of 50 - 65 ka. Even if the newly proposed date were halved, an uninterrupted 60 ka
continuity in the same territory would raise a few questions regarding the transmission mech-
anisms that have enabled the retention of the massive amount of knowledge acquired during
such an extended period, especially when considering the lack of demographic strength, which
is believed to be a prerequisite for effective social learning. Conversely, if the suggested 120
ka antiquity became validated by additional finds, then – at their landfall – the first Australians
would have likely been archaic humans with freshly evolved species-specific cognitive abili-
ties. On the same note, if the emergence of human-specific consciousness and the colonisation
of Australia were roughly coeval occurrences, then the initial conceptualisation of a new envi-
ronment – aided by the application of novel cognitive faculties – might explain the idiosyncra-
sies of Indigenous Australian material, social, and spiritual developments. The model for-
warded in this paper is at odds with current theoretical approaches to cultural evolution, in
which Aboriginal traditions are often portrayed as living examples of Palaeolithic cross-cul-
tural universals. Informed by the hypothesis of ‘cultural heterochrony’, I argue that the emer-
gence, developmental rate, and extent of Australian culture reflect an ‘additive’ strategy cen-
tred on a ritually regulated feedback loop between the volume of information flow and the level
of social elaboration.
Keywords: cognitive modernity, cumulative vs. additive cultural evolution, demographic strength
vs. social elaboration, exograms, geomythology, heterochrony in cultural evolution, knowledge,
mnemonic techniques, niche construction, ritual.

* Independent researcher, CISENP (International Commission on the Intellectual and Spiritual Expression of Non-Literate
Peoples), Capo di Ponte, Italy. E-mail: georgesteiner@gmx.net

[Received: xx/xx/2021; Accepted: xx/xx/2021]