The Yam style of painting got its name from the factthat it fratured much curvier figures that actuallyresemble the vegetable called a yam,which is similarto a sweet potato.The Modern paintings areinteresting because they include paintings at the timeof the first contact with European settlers.Aboriginesmanaged to convey the idea of the settlers' clothingby simply painting the Europeans without anyhands,indicating the habit of standing with theirhands in their pockets!Size is anothercharacteristic.The more recent images tend to belife size or even larger,but the Dynamic figures arepainted in miniature.
Aboriginal rock art also records the environmental changes that occurred over thousands ofyears.For example,we know from the Dynamic paintings that over 8,000 years ago,Aborigineswould have rarely eaten fish and sea levels were much lower at this time.In fact,fish didn't startto appear in paintings until the Yam period along with shells and other marine images.Thepaintings of the Yam tradition also suggest that,during this time,the Aborigines moved awayfrom animals as their main food source and began including vegetables in their diet,as thesefeature prominently.Freshwater creatures didn't appear in the paintings until the Modem periodfrom 4,000 years ago.