ABSTRACT

The thylacine, commonly associated with its Tasmanian extinction, also existed on the Australian mainland up until 3000–3500 years ago and is depicted in rock art sites in various locations around Australia. This lengthy period since extinction means we know little about Aboriginal Australians’ connections with this animal. This paper draws on available evidence to explore these thylacine connections. This exploration highlights the role that inscriptions, traces and narratives may play in facilitating continuing relationships with long extinct species. It also suggests that in these cosmologies, the material absence of a species does not necessarily correlate with ontological finality (of the kind generally considered central to the idea of extinction). The comparative perspective offered here complements work detailing extinction as a concept that has its own historical origins and developments, one that emerges as a specific cultural understanding about the nature of the world and its inhabitants.

摘要

通常与塔斯马尼亚灭绝有关的袋狼在 3000-3500 年前还存在于澳大利亚大陆，并在澳大利亚各地的岩石艺术遗址中被描绘出来。灭绝后的这段漫长时期意味着我们对澳大利亚原住民与这种动物的关系知之甚少。本文利用现有证据来探索这些袋狼之间的联系。这种探索突出了铭文、痕迹和叙述在促进与早已灭绝的物种的持续关系方面可能发挥的作用。它还表明，在这些宇宙学中，物种的物质缺失并不一定与本体论的终结性（通常被认为是灭绝概念的核心）相关。