Records of the INesterf] Australian MuseulJ1 24: 307 .31H (200H).

How was Mulka's Cave, an Aboriginal rock art site near Hyden, in south-central Western Australia, used by the people who decorated its walls,

when the present entrance was much smaller?

R. Esmee Webb l and Alana M. RossFlSchool of N,ltural Sciences, Edith Cowan Universitv, ]oondalup, Western Australia 6027, Australia.

Fmail: e.webb(uecu.edu.au'Kurongkurl Katitjin, Edith Cowan University, Mount Lawley, Western Australia 6050, Australia.

Email: alana_3j(uhotmail.com

Abstract - Analysis of old photographs and survev data shows that nearlyone metre of the sediment in Mulka's Cave, a profusely decorated Aboriginalrock art site in south-western Australia, has disappeared in the last 50 years.This evidence for erosion prompted us to reassess the results of previousresearch at the site. Our reconstruction of the floor level in 1950 affects lightlevels within the cave and the visibility of the artwork, causing us toreconsider how the cave was used when the artwork was made and tosuggest that the present entrance may not then have been in use. Investigationof the deposits immediately outside the cave suggests, furthermore, that thatarea may not have been a major focus of camping. F~ather, camping occurrednear a series of gnammas 500 m north of the cave.

Keywords: sediment erosion, cave morphology, rock art, south-westernAustralia.

INTRODUCTIONMulka's Cave, site 5842 on the Register of

Aboriginal Sites maintained by the WesternAustralian Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA),is large granite boulder that began to weather intoits present hollowed out shape in the late Mesozoic.The boulder is part of The Humps (Twidale andBourke 20(4), an impressive dome of LatePrecambrian granite situated 15 km north of WaveRock, a heavily-promoted natural granite weather-ing feature located 3 km north of Hyden (Figure 1).I-Iyden is 300 km sou theast of Perth on the easternedge of the Wheatbelt in south-central WesternAustralia.Mulka's Cave contains 452 pictograms (painted

motifs), a very high number by comparison withthe other decorated rockshelters known in theWheatbelt, which mostly house fewer than 100motifs (Webb and Cunn 2(04). Those in Mulka'sCave comprise '275 handstencils, 40 sprayed areas,23 handprints, 23 paintings, three drawings and[an] object stencil [in] a wide range of colours'(Cunn 2006a: 19): brown, orange, yellow and cream,as well as white and the manv shades of red thatare ubiquitous in Australian rock art. IJue to itsproximity to Hyden, Mulka's Cave is now visitedby most of the approximately 80,000 tourists whovisit vVave Rock each year; particularly those oncommercial tours. This level of visitation, 200

people a day on average, is extremely high for aspatially restricted site whose rock art Gunn (2006a)considered fairly 'ordinary', because handstencilspredominate; as they do throughout south-westernAustralia (Davidson 1952).That the environs of Mulka's Cave were

deteriorating due to over-visitation has been knownfor 20 years (Rodda 1989), bu t the extent of thedamage was not, perhaps, fully appreciated untilrecently. We first visited the cave in April 2004,when Gunn (2006a) recorded the artwork in detail.We returned in April-May 2006, to monitorinstallation of an elevated walkway with a viewingplatform and new signage (Figure 2); part of sitemanagement improvements undertaken by touristorganisations in I-lyden, with the support of theMulka's Cave Aboriginal Steering Committee andthe consent of the Minister of Indigenous Affairs.vVhen we compared the photographs of the cavemouth we took on both occasions, the shape of theentrance had visibly changed; prompting us toexamine other pictures of the site that could bedated (Day 1951; Serventy 1952; l\andolph ]Bovvdlcr et al. I Figure 3 is the result of thatresearch. It shows that 1988, when Bowdler et al.(1989) test excavated the floor deposits just insidethe dripline, about 0.5 m of sediment had beeneroded from the 1950 level, when the entrance was< ] m high. By 2004, another 0.5 m of deposit had

DOI: 10.18195/issn.0312-3162.24(3).2008.307-318

r--------------------------------- --

308 R.E. Webb, A.M. Rossi

Dalwallinu·

J~~ ~

100 km

Figure 1 Location of Mulka's Cave relative to Tindale's(1974) circumcision line (the area covered bythe Noongar native title claim is shaded).

been lost, explaining why all trace of the test pit hasdisappeared. That erosion was accelerating isshown by the amount of sediment lost between2004 and 2006. Had the walkway not been installed,erosion would have continued unabated becausethe deposits outside the cave were probed to adepth of one metre without reaching bedrock. Webelieve this erosion is due to the number of touristswho now visit the site (Rossi and Webb, 2008, inpress). For example, in May 2006, five or six coach-

loads of tourists, plus independent travellers,visited the cave on some days; about 150-200people. Visitation is much higher in spring, whenthe wildflowers are blooming; lower in the heightof summer.Although Mulka's Cave is large: 15 m east-west, 9

m north-south and 2.5 m high; there are not manyplaces where visitors can stand comfortably to viewthe artwork. The cave is filled with boulders, somevery large, that appear to have fallen from the roofor rolled into the cave from the rock tumbleupslope on The Humps, while the floor at the baseof the rock pile now measures only 2 x 7 m.Commercial tour groups often comprise 30 people.When they enter the cave, two of these people arecrowded into each square metre of floor space,unless some climb onto the boulder pile, a practicethat is now discouraged, easing the congestionbelow. Because the cave entrance is quiteconstricted, the people in these tour groups used tocluster outside the cave before and after viewingthe artwork, scuffing up the devegetated groundsurface. Now they are confined to the walkway anddo not impact the ground. The cave floor has beencovered with rubber matting, the deposits betweenthe end of the walkway and the matting have beenconsolidated and the degraded external depositsplanted with Allocasuarina huegeliana (Sheoak)seedlings, most of which were flourishing when wevisited the site in late May 2007. The new signageexplains the significance of the artwork, tellsMulka's story and discusses what little is knownabout the archaeology and early history of theAboriginal people of the area around Hyden.Mulka was a fearsome Dreaming Being of

enormous size who lived in the cave. The stencilsare said to be of his hands; partly because many are

Figure 2 The raised walkway installed outside Mulka's Cave in May 2006. The viewing platform now carries severalinformative signs.

Mulka's Cave 309

Figure 3 Reconstruction of the ground levd at the mouth of Mulka's Cave between 1952 and 2006, based on Day(1951), Servcnty (1952), l<1.andolph (1973), Rowdier et al. (19i\9) and photographs taken in 2004 and 2006 byAMI\.

high up on the ceiling. He was the illegitimateresult of a 'wrong' relationship. He was born withcrossed eyes and took to eating children because hecould not hunt effectively. When his motherscolded him, he killed her and fled. His tribe chasedhim to Dumbleyung, 150 km south-west of Hyden,and killed him. The members of the Mulka's CaveAboriginal Steering Committee who inspected thewalkway told us they knew Aboriginal people whowere too frightened of Mulka to go into the cave.They themselves would not go in after dark. Indeed,when with us at the site, they did not enter the caveat all; although they had no objection to us ortourists going in.Bowdler et al. (1989) doubted the authenticity of

the Mulka story, because it was first reported by alocal farmer in the 1970s. On the other hand, Gunn(2006a: 21) said he had 'recorded similar myths inCentral and Northern Australia, and considered[the Mulka story] to be quite typical of local (non-

travelling) myths'. Similar stories were alsorecorded by Meggitt (1962: 261-262) from theWarlpiri, a Western Desert language group withcultural links to the people occupying the countryto the east of Mulka's Cave. Mulka's story was alsorecounted at length on information leaflets aboutthe site produced by DIA in the 1980s. There is littlechance of authenticating the story now, however,because much traditional knowledge was lost whenAboriginal culture collapsed within one or twogenerations of British arrival in the south-west inthe early 1800s (Green 1981).

WHICH ENTRANCE TO MULKA'S CAVE WASIN USE WHEN THE ARTWORK WAS MADE?Our realisation that the ground level inside the

cave used to be much higher (Figure 4), caused usto wonder whether the present entrance to Mulka'sCave was the main entrance when the artwork was

2m ..................... 1952 noor levelDEPOSIT ....

~ , 2004 floor level

Figure 4 Reconstruction of the ground level within Mulka's Cave in 1952 compared with the level in 2004, adaptedAMR from Cunn (2006a: figure 4).

310 R.E. Webb, A.M. Rossi

Figure 5 Handstencils outside what is now the rearentrance to Mulka's Cave, but may have beenthe main entrance when the artwork wasmade (Gunn 2004: figure 16).

made. Several non-Aboriginal local residents visitedthe site while the walkway was being installed.They told us that when they first visited the cave aschildren, 40-50 years ago, they had to crawl in. Inother words, the ground was probably at the 1950s'level. What Gunn (2006a) understandably describedas the rear entrance, because it faces The Humpsand is filled with rock tumble, we now think mayhave been the main entrance in antiquity. Thisentrance is easily accessed by scrambling among theboulders that surround Mulka's Cave up to ashoulder of The Humps. We think this entrance haschanged little over the last 3,000-4,000 years, theperiod during which Gunn (2006a) thought theartwork was made, partly because the bedrock isArchaean and has been weathering in situ formillions of years, partly because many of theboulders that fill it are too large and heavy to moveeasily. Certainly, this entrance has not changednoticeably since it was recorded by Serventy (1952).It is still about 2 m wide and 1.5 m high. It ismarked without and within with handstencils(Figure 5); whereas, if there ever were any artworkon the outer face of the lower entrance, it hasdisappeared. Water pours over that face when itrains (Figure 6), however; whereas the artwork

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10 cm-

. - ... .....

/..---......-. ...-- - - ...

~ _ ....

------ ....

Figure 6 Rain falling over the present entrance to Mulka's Cave in June 2005.

Mulka's Cave 311

gnammas 3 & 4 •

Figure 7 Plan of The Humps showing the gnammasand the area that appears to have been thefocus for Aboriginal occupation, adapted byAMR from Cunn (2006a: figure 3).

outside the upper entrance is protected from theweather by overhanging rock.T'he hand stencils outside the rear entrance to

Mulka's Cave could have been intended to alert theuninformed that the boulder was decorated. Weknow of other rock art sites in the south-west wherethe decorated boulder in a cluster of boulders ismarked externally, but we also know of clusters ofboulders where the decorated boulder is notmarked; so that suggestion needs to be tested byaccumulating more data, if possible.The inside faces of the outer walls of the lowerchamber in Mulka's Cave carry not onlyhandstencils but most of the linear paintings,which are best viewed from within the rearentrance. Whether they were placed there for thatreason cannot now be ascertained; but if theywere, their placement would support oursuggestion that the cave was entered from therear when the artwork was made. How manymotifs were made on the inside face of the lowerentrance is unknown because that area used to bebadly defaced with graffiti; some of which is stillvisible. Its removal by members of theDepartment of Aboriginal Sites (Randolph 1973;Clarke 1976; Haydock and Rodda 1986), nowDIA, removed the underlying artwork as well.Traces of pigment survive, but they are toofragmentary to interpret.Sunlight rarely penetrates directly into Mulka's

Cave; the entrances are too low. The local residentswho visited the site in May 2006 told us that whenthe present entrance was smaller the cave was verydark and the artwork was difficult to see. Torches

were essential. Even now, one needs to allow one'seyes to adjust to the low light levels before some ofthe motifs become visible. Most can be detectedwithout artificial illumination, however. If ourreconstruction of the cave interior in the 1950sapproximates conditions when the artwork wasmade, light levels would then have been low. Inthat case, the artwork in Mulka's Cave may nothave been intended to be easily seen, making it verydifferent from other art sites known in the south-west, most of which are quite open and well-lit,even those housing paintings we think probablyhad secret/sacred significance when they weremade; although interpretation of their meaning isno longer possible due to the cultural dislocationand loss of knowledge that followed colonisation(Green 1981). Usually, handstencils are assumed tobe 'public art'; interpreted as 'claims to country'(Moore 1977). The possibility that those in Mulka'sCave were not, but had ceremonial significance, isdiscussed below.

WHERE DID PEOPLE CAMP AT MULKA'SCAVE?

Despite being surrounded by farmland now,Mulka's Cave really lies on the western edge of thesemi-arid zone. Rainfall is uncertain and for sevenyears in ten the amount received at Hyden fails toreach the annual average of 345 mm (Bureau ofMeteorology data). Research in the WesternAustralian semi-arid zone has shown thatceremonial sites are usually located near suppliesof freshwater (Gunn and Webb 2000, 2002, 2003,2006; Webb and Gunn 2004), but free-standingpotable water is scarce around Hyden. There is noactive drainage and the rare lakes are hypersaline.Moreover, when rain falls it is quickly absorbed bythe sandy soil, or it collects in the salinas and isundrinkable. Rainwater also collects in gnammas,however; rockholes in granite outcrops thatAboriginal people throughout Australia are knownto have used because the water they hold staysfresh (Bindon 1997; Bayly 1999).Five gnammas, two with lids, have formed within

500 m of Mulka's Cave (Figure 7). The two largestwere recently cleaned out, allowing their full depthto be measured. There is also a large runoff-fedcollection point that has developed along a bedrockfault on T'he Humps. In Table 1, the capacity ofthese water sources has been calculated as follows:1 m ' 1,000 I, the volume of a cylinder is rcrh, thatof a hemisphere is 2rcr/3. Which formula is usedaffects volume estimates: a sub-cylindrical gnamma2 m in diameter and 1 m deep holds about 3,000 I; asub-hemispherical gnamma 2 m in diameter with amaximum depth of I m holds about 2,000 I. Thegnammas at The Humps are all ovoid or sub-cylindrical, although the two largest have wide

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*MULKA'SCAVE

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THE HUMPS

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312 R.E. Webb, A.M. Rossi

Table 1 Dimensions in metres and capacity in litres of the water sources identified near Mulka's Cave, revised fromGunn's (2006a: Table 15) estimates.

water source length width

Humps 1 top 1.60 1.10Humps 1 bottom 1.40 0.85Humps 2 top 3.50 2.50Humps 2 bottom 2.00 2.00Humps 3 0.45 0.20Humps 4 0.20 0.15Humps 5 top 0.85 0.60Humps 5 bottom 0.25 0.20cleft rockhole 8.50 2.00

totals

shallow mouths that quickly narrow to deep shafts(Figure 8). For those gnammas whose width andlength differed markedly, r was taken to be L+W/4.The cleft rockhole on The Humps tapers anddeepens markedly upslope and has a V-shapedprofile. Its volume was calculated as (LWD}/2.These water sources all fill simultaneouslywhenever it rains, providing about 12,000 I of waterin total, ten times Gunn's (2006a) estimate. Thevolume of water occasionally available nearMulka's Cave may explain why it was chosen fordecoration and should have made The Humps afocus for Aboriginal occupation, given the dearth ofpotable water in the surrounding country. Findingwhere people camped has not proved easy,however. They do not appear to have occupied thecave, for example.Bowdler et al. (1989) thought that most of the 208

artefacts they recovered from the 0.65 m3 of depositthey excavated from within the cave had beendisturbed after deposition because they were mixedwith (undescribed) 'European material'. They saidthat only the core, six flakes (one with secondarymodification) and 24 flaked fragments found >0.5 mbelow the surface had 'some stratigraphic integrity'(Bowdler et al. (1989: 23). These 31 artefacts camefrom 0.15 m3 of sediment; a very low rate of discard.

Figure 8 Gnamma 2 at The Humps (photo: R.G. Gunn2003).

depth capacity Gunn (2006)

0.15 2000.95 950 770.10 700 2000.90 2,800 3000.30 25 30.20 5 10.20 800.15 6 130.80 7,000 650

12,000 1,250

Consequently, Bowdler et al. suggested that thecave was visited infrequently. We concur. If thefloor was at the 1950 level when the cave was inuse, the interior would have been more crampedand much darker than it is now, and possibly quitedamp.Figure 4 shows that the flat area at the base of the

rock pile inside Mulka's Cave would have beenslightly larger than at present when the floor levelwas a metre higher, but the cave roof would havebeen commensurately lower. Theunissen et al.(1998) showed that ceiling height affects howpeople move around in caves. We think therewould have been few places at the base of the rockpile in Mulka's Cave where adults could standupright when the floor was at the 1950s' level, whilethere are few other places where a fire could be lit;making the cave an unlikely camping spot. Thereare no traces of smoke blackening on the ceiling orwalls, but the cave would be dank and gloomywithout a fire to give warmth and light.Consequently, we doubt whether people evercamped in Mulka's Cave, as against visiting it forceremonies; a suggestion first made by Hallam(1975).Gunn (2006a: 35-36) thought the area outside the

present entrance was the main focus of campingactivities. He noted that artefacts, predominantlyquartz (90%), were scattered over this area, whichmeasures about 15 m north-south by 20 m east-west. He analysed 132 pieces visible in the erosiongully shown in Figure 9, over which the walkwaywas later constructed. They comprised chieflyknapping debris (95%), but included three backedflakes and a geometric microlith that Gunn assignedto the Australian Small Tool Tradition, which isconventionally dated to <6,000 BP (Mulvaney andKamminga 1999: 230-256).In April 2006, before installation of the walkway

began, we collected every artefact visible on thesurface of the entire area shown in Figure 9. Onlyone or two artefacts were found in anyone squaremetre; many squares contained no artefacts. This isa very low rate of discard for a frequently visited

Mulka's Cave 313

Figure 9 Position of the postholes dug to support thewalkway outside Mulka's Cave.

campsite. The artefacts comprise chiefly knappingdebris, but include several backed pieces and ageometric microlith made from clear quartz. Theseartefact types are conventionally assigned to theAustralian Small Tool Tradition. Several pieces ofold bottle glass had also been flaked. One has amaker's stamp that may be datable. They suggestthat Aboriginal people were still visiting Mulka'sCave after the British began exploring thesurrounding region in the mid-late nineteenthcentury. Bowdler et al. (1989: 5-6) said sandalwoodcutters were active around The I'lumps in 1847.John Septimus Roe, Western Australia's firstSurveyor General, passed nearby in 1848 (Roe 1852)and, in April-June 1893, following the discovery ofgold at Kalgoorlie, John Holland, a kangarooshooter, cut a track from Broomehill to Coolgardiethat passed near The Humps (Holland 1936).Michael Cronin, a resident of Katanning, exploredthe region at about the same time (Bignell 1981:122). His son Donald's name is carved on the largeboulder in front of which Bowdler et al. (1989) dugtheir testpit; while the words 'M. Cronin 1894' wereremoved from the ceiling of Mulka's Cave byRandolph (1973), along with other graffiti. TheCronins appear to have been the first non-Aboriginal people to leave their mark in Mulka'sCave. Most of the old flaked glass need notnecessarily have been worked by Aboriginal people,of course, although cultural heritage consultantsregularly find pieces of flaked bottle glass inscatters of stone artefacts assumed to have been

made by Aboriginal people. The presence ofworked glass at Mulka's Cave is, therefore,unsurprising.Installation of the support posts for the walkway

permitted us to examine the subsurface depositsoutside Mulka's Cave. Thirty-four holes each 300mm square and 650 mm deep had to be dug.Twelve of these postholes were carefully excavatedin 50 mm spits (Figure 9), artefacts being recordedin situ whenever possible (Webb 2(06). Thoseidentified to date include mUlti-platform cores,whole and broken flakes and flaked fragments, butfew secondarily modified pieces. They are beingstudied by AMR as part of her MA research. Theexcavated sediment was passed through 6 mm and3 mm sieves; as was that shovelled from the otherpostholes. All the material coarser than 3 mm wasretained for analysis. Fewer than 10 artefacts,predominantly in quartz of medium quality, wererecovered from anyone posthole; mostly in the top300 mm of the deposit in the postholes nearest thecave. The postholes farthest from the cave yieldedalmost no artefacts. We believe that these artefactsmay originally have been discarded in the cave andtransported outside by trampling and solifluction(Rossi and Webb, 2008, in press). We estimate thatabout 10-15 rn) of deposit has disappeared fromwithin the cave in the last 50 years. If that sedimentwere spread over the slope outside the cave itwould form a layer about 300 mm thick. Moresediment would, of course, be deposited near thecave mouth, less farther away; explaining thepattern of artefact discard we found in this area andemphasising the sparsity of the assemblage. For allthese reasons, we do not think Mulka's Cave itselfor the area immediately outside were camping foci.Rather, camping occurred in the area shown inFigure 7; a belt of trees fringing an ephemeral creekhalfway between the cave and the two largestgnammas.Members of the Mulka's Cave Aboriginal Steering

Committee told Robert Reynolds (pers. comm.2(06), the Senior Heritage Officer with DIA who co-ordinated the walkway project, that when theycame to The Humps as children, 30-40 years ago,they camped in this area. It was recentlyinvestigated. An extensive, moderately dense,artefact scatter was found into which a testpit 500mm square was dug in May 2007. Artefacts werefound to a depth of -300 mm, suggesting that thearea had been occupied over a considerable period.The age of this occu pation has yet to be established,nor have the artefacts been fully analysed, but wethink that when people visited Mulka's Cave theymostly camped here because the number ofartefacts recovered from individual spits in thistestpit exceeded those found in the walkwaypostholes by an order of magnitude (about 40artefacts from O.0I2S rni

).

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314 R.E. Webb, A.M. Rossi

Mulka's Cave 1 6 83 29Cue totals 26 221 615 228 83Cilla 6 25 10 3Poona 1 22 45 16 4Reedy Rockhole 2 18 27 4 1

Table 2 Numbers of handstencils in Mulka's Cave(Cunn 2006a), grouped by age class (Cunn2006b), compared with the numbers in thesame classes found at Cilla, Poona and ReedyRockhole (Fig. 11) and more generally aroundCue (Cunn and Webb 2000,2002,2003,2(06).

were still being kidnapped and forcibly initiatedfollowing Western Desert custom in the 1930s.We think the size of the handstencils in Mulka's

Cave supports our suggestion that the cave mayhave been used primarily for male rituals. The sizeof a person's hand reflects their age and gender:adults have larger hands than children, men tend tohave larger hands than women. The length of themiddle finger or the width across the knuckles ismeasured as a way of inferring the approximate ageand possible gender of the person whose hand wasstencilled or printed. Cunn (2006b) argued thatinfants have a knucklewidth of <55 mm; children,55-70 mm; adolescents/women, 70-85 mm; menand large women, 85-95 mm; large men, >95 mm. Ifthe hands of people of all ages are represented at agiven site, the size data should be normallydistributed; if not, the data will be skewed.Cunn and Webb (2000, 2002, 2003, 2006)

measured 1,173 handstencils in rock art sites aroundCue (Table 2), a small town on the Creat NorthernHighway, 650 km north of Perth. Thosemeasurements, converted to age classes, arenormally distributed (Figure 10), suggesting thatanyone visiting the shelters in which the stencils arelocated could stencil their hand; although the handsof infants were not often stencilled. The pattern atMulka's Cave is quite different. Of the 119 handsthat could be measured, 40% of the total recorded,70% can be attributed to adolescents and/or women.The absence of very large hands is interesting giventhat the stencils are supposed to be of Mulka'shands and he was said to be a giant. We suggestthat the handstencils in Mulka's Cave more likelybelonged to boys than to women and that boys'hands might have been stencilled preferentiallyduring their initiation, as proof of their ties to thesite. Whether the cave would have been off-limitsto women and children during such ceremonies isnot known. As noted above, there are no gender-specific prohibitions connected with the site now.Most of the individual shelters recorded around

Cue housed fewer than 30 handstencils, samples toosmall to compare with the data from Mulka's Cave,

WAS MULKA'S CAVE PRINCIPALLY ACEREMONIAL SITE?

Due to the cultural dislocation that followedcolonisation, nothing is known about howAboriginal people used Mulka's Cave before theBritish settled south-western Australia. Cunn(2006a) thought, however, that the large geometricpaintings in the cave were almost certainly made bysenior men and probably refer to the Dreamingtracks of totemic ancestors, as such motifs do inDesert paintings (Spencer and Cillen 1899; Could1969). The presence of these paintings suggests thatMulka's Cave may have been the focus of malerituals. If so, the fact that even in daytime it mayhave been quite dark inside when it was decoratedmight be significant; especially if those ritualsincluded initiation, which is a form of rebirth, anemergence from darkness into light. Initiationrituals often take place at night, when going intoMulka's Cave would be quite frightening.We hesitated to question the members of the

Mulka's Cave Aboriginal Steering Committee aboutsuch a sensitive issue since we are female and notindigenous, but we did establish that they had noobjections to us, or female tourists, viewing theartwork. If they had known of any culturalprohibition about women going into Mulka's Cavewe are sure they would have told us. On the otherhand, so much traditional knowledge was lost inthe mid-nineteenth century that people may nolonger know about such cultural prohibitions. Thereis also the possibility that the paintings were notmade by the people of the south-west, who nowcall themselves Noongar, but by men from theWestern Desert. In which case, their culturalprohibitions might not be known to or recognisedby Noongar people. The members of the steeringcommittee are all Noongar. The Noongar, were andare culturally distinct from all other Aboriginalpeople; except perhaps the Tasmanians (Bates 1923;Davidson 1939; Tindale 1940, 1974). They markedinitiation by scarification. Bates thought theNoongar were the descendants of the first Sahuliancolonists, who were culturally swamped by laterarrivals everywhere except in Tasmania and thesouth-west. Bates said that, wherever possible, thelater (Desert) people aggressively imposed theirinitiation rites of circumcision and subincision onthose who did neither. Consequently, by the timeanthropologists began to Shldy Aboriginal culturein the early twentieth century, the boundarybetween Noongar and Western Desert people waswell defined (Tindale 1940, 1974). Mulka's Cave liesonly 75 km west of this Circumcision Line (Figure1). Its proximity to the Western Desert may explainwhy Desert motifs were painted in the cave. Theymay reflect the westward expansion of Desertcustoms that Cibbs and Veth (2002) said continuedinto the early twentieth century. Noongar boys

infnt child adscnt adult men

Mulka's Cave 315

° Serpent's Glen

Figure 11 Location of the decorated rockshelters in thesouthern half of Western Australia referredto in the text.

but Poona (Figure 11) contains 100 hands, 88 ofwhich could be measured (Cunn and Webb 2003:123-125). This large, open shelter in an elevatedstretch of breakaways dominates a small valley.Consequently, the handstencils can be seen fromhundreds of metres away. Cunn and Webb (2003:52) thought this site may have had ceremonial

significance when the stencils were made, althoughthis cannot now be verified, because it contains ablock of saprolite that has been abraded, possiblyduring rituals similar to those recorded byMountford (1976) in the Western Desert. Yet, 25'/:)of the hands stencilled in Poona belong to children(Table 2). Perhaps they are 'claims to country'(Moore 1977). Certainly, they are highly visible'public' art.Two other rockshelters near Cue houses enoughhandstencils for the pattern of their age/sizedistribution to be statistically meaningful. f-1alf the44 measurable handstencils in Cilia can beattributed to adolescents/women, while children'sand men's hands are present in approximatelyequal numbers (Table 2). Similarly, half the 52measurable handstencils at Reedv Rockhole can beattributed to adolescents/women, while themajority of the remainder can be attributed tochildren. Both these shelters are situated at themouths of defiles in which large rockholes haveformed. As at Poona, the presence of children'shands may be 'claims to country'. Certainly, thedata from Poona, Cilia and Reedy emphasise howunusual the inferred age range of the people whosehands were stencilled in Mulka's Cave is. Thepredominance of adolescents' hands at Mulka'sCave supports, we believe, our suggestion that thecave was primarily a focus for male ceremonies thatperhaps included initiation rituals.There is some other archaeological evidence that

supports our suggestion that Mulka's Cave mayhave been used differently from other profuselydecorated sites in the southern half of WesternAustralia. Figure 11 shows the location of thosesites that have been test excavated and details ofwhose age and contents are known. The numbers ofartefacts discarded at each provide comparative

DESERT

WESTERN

500 km +C::J__=lI__:::J1 J1I

° Kaalpl

° Mulka's Cave

Poona ° Madoonga~ a R:edy rockhole

Walga ° ~rra

Gldgee

°Wurarga

Ocean

Indian

80Dmfantchild

70 • adolescent

.Iarge men60

Cue region Mulka's Cave

Figure 10 Ilandstencil sizes grouped by inferred age from sites around Cue, left (n 1,173), and Mulka's Cave,(n 119),

316

Table 3 The volume of sediment excavated, number ofartefacts recovered from levels post-dating4,000 BP and estimated number of artefacts ina cubic metre of deposit at all the decoratedshelters in the southern half of WesternAustralia for which data are available(BawdIer et al. 1989; O'Connor et al. 1998;Webb and Cunn 1999; Veth et a1. 2001; Webb2008, unpublished data). The artwork inWurarga is discussed by Hall (1994), that atCidgee, Cilia, Madoonga and Yarraquin byCunn and Webb (2000).

site name volume number nos/m'

Cidgee 0.5xO.5xO.3m 1,088 14,507Cilia O.5xO.5xO.3m 282 3,760Kaalpi 2.0xl.0xO.4m 841 1,051Madoonga 1.0x1.0xO.4m 223 558MuIka's Cave 1.0x1.0xO.6m 280 467Serpent's Clen 1.0x1.0x1.0m >1,731 >1,731WaIga Rock V14 1.0x1.0x1.0m 1,507 1,507Walga Rock V15 1.0xl.0xl.0m 1,944 1,944WaIga Rock W14 1.0x1.0x1.0m 1,632 1,632WaIga Rock W15 1.0x1.0x1.0m 1,714 1,714Wurarga 1.0x1.0xO.6m 2,678 4,463Yarraquin 0.5xO.5xO.3m 656 8,747

data from which to assess whether the paucity ofartefacts found at Mulka's Cave is behaviourallysignificant. Although each of the sites in Table 3was in use over a period of different length, theartefacts were all deposited in the last 4,000 yearsand most are made from quartz. The data in Table 3suggest that the way Aboriginal people usedMulka's Cave was different from the way they usedall the other shelters, except perhaps Madoonga.There is no water collection point near Madoonga.It appears to have been visited mainly to exploit avein of quartz in the back wall (Webb, unpublisheddata). Very few artefacts were deposited at eithersite, supporting the suggestion made by Bowdler etal. (1989) that Mulka's Cave was visitedinfrequently.The disparity between the number of artefacts

discarded at Walga Rock, one of the most profuselydecorated sites in Australia, and those recoveredfrom Mulka's Cave is noteworthy because Walga isknown to have been a site of considerable regionalsignificance, although no ceremonies have beenheld there since the Second World War (Gunn et al.1997). An unusually high number of 'formal tools'was recovered from Walga (Bordes et al. 1983;Webb and Gunn 1999). Webb suggested this aspectof the assemblage might relate to the site'sceremonial functions. If that suggestion is correctand Mulka's Cave was principally a ceremonial site,then the fact that both we and Bowdler et al. (1989:24) found very few 'formal tools' there requiresfurther study. We are currently investigating thisaspect of the artefacts found within and

R.E. Webb, A.M. Rossi

immediately without the cave and comparing thatassemblage with the artefacts found beside theephemeral creek.

CONCLUSIONIt is ironic that this reconsideration of how

Mulka's Cave may have been used in the past onlybecame possible because the site was deterioratingdue to over-visitation by tourists. Like Bowdler etal. (1989), we think the cave was rarely visited. Wethink it was primarily a focus for ceremonies thatperhaps included initiation rituals. Gunn (2006a)thought the cave was used as a shelter frominclement weather, but that occupation andceremonies occurred outside the present entrance;whereas, we think that ceremonies were held in thecave, while occupation occurred by the ephemeralcreek; the only place where we have found charcoal.Reconsideration of other aspects of how Aboriginalpeople used Mulka's Cave and its environs mustawait the results of the artefact analysis andassessment of the age of the charcoal samplesrecently submitted for dating.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis study would not have been possible withoutthe support of the Mulka's Cave AboriginalSteering Committee. REW monitored installation ofthe walkway. AMR researched the rate of erosionand is analysing the archaeological materialrecovered from the walkway postholes andadditional test excavations as an MA by thesis atEdith Cowan University. Her interest in the cavewas sparked by helping KG. Gunn to record theartwork in detail in 2004. He is thanked forpermitting us to reproduce some of the drawingshe made at that time. We also thank Brian Blurton(OlA Midland), Vicki and Robert Reynolds (OlAAlbany) and Jodee Smith for assistance in the fieldin 2006. Jill and Greg Dwyer, Rolf Meeking, JaneMouritz and Erin Stringer are thanked for assistancein Hyden. The published version of this paperbenefited from critical review by Val Attenbrowand Peter Randolph and editorial comment byMark Harvey.

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Manuscript received 3 April 2007; accepted 13 November2007.

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Records of the Western Australian MuseumVolume 24 Part 3 2008

CONTENTS

Thomas A. Darragh and George W. KendrickSilicified Eocene molluscs from the Lower Murchison district,Southern Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia 2] 7

Paul Doughty, Paul Oliver and Mark AdamsSystematics of stone geckos in the genus Diplodactylus (Reptilia:Diplodactylidae) from northwestern Australia, with a descriptionof a new species from the Northwest Cape, Western Australia 247

Ivana KaranovicThree interesting Cyprididae (Ostracoda) from Western Australia 267

Brian V. TimmsFurther studies on the fairy shrimp genus BranchineIJa(Crustacea, Anostraca, Thamnocephalidae) in Western Australia,with descriptions of new species 289

R. Esmee Webb and Alana M. RossiHow was Mulka's Cave, an Aboriginal rock art site near Flyden, insouth-central Western Australia, used by the people who decoratedits walls, when the present entrance was much smaller? 307