The Yam style of painting got its name from the fact that it fratured much curvier figuresthat actually resemble the vegetable called a yam,which is similar to a sweet potato.The Modern paintings are interesting because they include paintings at the time of the first contact with European settlers.Aborigines managed to convey the idea of the settlers' clothing by simply painting the Europeans without any hands,indicating the habit of standing with their hands in their pockets! Size is another characteristic.The more recent images tend to be life size or even larger,but the Dynamic figures are painted in miniature.Aboriginal rock art also records the environmental changes that occurred over thousands of years.For example,we know from the Dynamic paintings that over 8,000 years ago,Aborigines would have rarely eaten fish and sea levels were much lower at this time.In fact,fish didn't start to appear in paintings until the Yam period along with shells and other marine images.The paintings of the Yam tradition also suggest that, during this time,the Aborigines moved away from animals as their main food sourceand began including vegetables in their diet,as these feature prominently.Freshwater creatures didn't appear in the paintings until the Modem period from 4,000 years ago.
