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Burrup Peninsula rock carvings are among more than 1,000 sites the WA government has removed or blocked from its Aboriginal heritage register, after narrowing its definition of sacred sites. Sarah Dingle toured a protected site with an archaeologist and a Wong-goo-tt-oo elder. The carvings here, some up to 30,000 years old, depict Tasmanian tigers, emus, and extinct megafauna, offering a window into the region’s history.

It’s one of the earliest renditions of the human form in the world. And it’s just sitting here out in the open.

‘Unique is a word that’s often bandied around, but in this case there is nowhere else in the world exactly like this,’ says archaeologist Ken Mulvaney, standing on protected Aboriginal heritage ground in the Burrup Peninsula.

‘It’s a place that has rock art that spans probably some 30,000 years, and it documents not only the cultures of the people that were here in the past, the religious mythological beliefs of those people, but it also documents environmental change.’

In the Indian Ocean off the coast of WA lies a group of islands called the Dampier Archipelago, which includes the Burrup Peninsula. More than 6,000 years ago, these islands were hills sticking out of a vast coastal plain, says Mulvaney. As a result, ‘literally every surface is a canvas for art’.

The site he’s showing me around is currently protected, but nearly 1,300 others have been removed or blocked from WA’s Aboriginal heritage register. ‘Development here quite literally equates to destruction of very important sites,’ says Mulvaney. ‘The density of material here means that you can’t move without knocking over something’.

Carvings that pre-date the desert

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Whatsapp Rock carving potentially 25,000 years old.

‘You can see how deeply those images have been placed hammered into the rock’s surface in this case,’ says Mulvaney. ‘And you’ve got almost a ladder-like decoration, an extended torso, with small feet. You find them here in the inland Pilbara and what is now the edge of the central desert. It’s most likely those images were done before the deserts formed. So that image is potentially 25,000 years old or older.’

'Roadkill' echidna wasn't made for an art gallery

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Whatsapp Splayed echidna

‘[Here] you’ve actually got a splayed echidna. I call them roadkill design—as in they’re flattened as opposed to a profile view of the animal. Where that stick figure is there is a bird that is done over the top ... from here we can’t see it properly and it’s another feature of the art. The art isn’t produced like an art gallery to be viewed as if walking by and spotlighted by fine lights. It’s part of the production of the art, the essence of the art, which is the significance and so a lot of the images are done at any angle of the rock face. So they’re not all visible from the one spot.'

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Whatsapp Early depiction of human form.

'An example of the earliest form'

‘What we have is a central axis that runs vertical and you’ve got offset human figures, their legs and arms attached to the vertical axis and the style [is] very particular; rounded body with short thin limbs and the head as a dot.

'That design is unique to the archipelago. It is conceivable that that is 30,000 years or older.

'In fact it’s one of the earliest renditions of the human form in the world. And it’s just sitting here out in the open.’

Tasmanian tigers in Western Australia

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Whatsapp Early depiction of a thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger

‘[This] is an animal that is probably a thylacine but it is unfinished. The tail is not as completely hammered out of the rock as the rest of the body but it’s a solid form. Not only do we get thylacines, there’s the Tasmanian devil that we see as well in the art here, along with what are known as megafauna, so extinct giant marsupials you see in the art.’

Ritual carving of sacred images

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Whatsapp Archaeologist Ken Mulvaney with Burrup Peninsula rock carving

‘That one’s an amalgam of animals, so it’s not a single species. But the reason it is so clear is that it’s actually been re-engraved time and time again and you can see that through slightly different techniques that have been used. In addition to that, at the apex of the head-like structure it has been repeatedly pounded in the one spot, which we know is a ritual activity that was performed at certain important sacred images.’

Emus give way to waterbirds as sea levels rise

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Whatsapp Emu tracks depicted in Burrup Peninsula rock carvings.

‘The normal rule in Australian rock art is painted art; you will get the silhouettes of animals, the outline of animals. In engraved art or petroglyphs you get the tracks of animals represented. Here in the archipelago we get both. The interesting thing about the emu tracks, like the images of the emu, [is that] they’re all old. They date from before the sea levels came in. This is certainly not emu country now, but where the sea is now was a vast open plain and you would’ve had the emus there. In the later art you don’t get emu prints. What you start getting is things like pelicans and water birds. And you can see that in the art.’

Is this an extinct fat-tailed spotty kangaroo?

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Whatsapp Spotted, fat-tailed kangaroo depicted in Burrrup Peninsula rock carving.

‘Unlike most kangaroos and wallabies this has a bulge, a bit like the fat-tailed sheep. It appears there was possibly a fat-tailed macropod that lived in the Pilbara sometime before 10,000 years ago. It actually has what appear to be spots as a decoration… It is unlikely to have been an artistic design embellishment ... It is likely that what we have is an animal that went extinct before the sea levels came in, before the Holocene period of Australia.’

Industry looms on the horizon

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Whatsapp View of the Yara Fertiliser Plant from a rock carving site.

‘Industry forgets the footprint of itself in this landscape just is wrong. The fertiliser plant only started construction in 2003, the current technical ammonia nitrate plant is under construction today. There is no reason for them to be here other than the desire of state government Lands Department giving them the land. And it is a travesty that government is still encouraging industry to come here.

‘The emu that’s there, the Tasmanian devil, and the cluster of kangaroos there... you’ve got another kangaroo that has been converted to possum-like at a later period. And then just behind us here is the monitoring that’s been set up to deal with the technical ammonia nitrate plant or TAN plant. And then you’ve got Burrup fertiliser next to it.

‘I am disheartened and disillusioned but I will never give up, because this place deserves protection and if we don't fight for it, it will continue to go under the bulldozer's blade. I just can't see that happening.’

The 'Aboriginals' Bible'

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Whatsapp Wilfred Hicks is an elder of the Wong-goo-tt-oo people of the West Pilbara coast.

Wilfred Hicks is an elder of the Wong-goo-tt-oo group, and was born on Karratha station land.

‘The Aboriginals’ Bible that’s on these rocks... was put there for the Aboriginal people at their culture time when they were teaching the younger people. These rocks are the carvings which they sing during the night of their culture law times,’ he says.

‘You can go on the Burrup at night here in certain areas, you will get the feeling of a spirit following you. Some of the rocks that you see they’ve got ... traditional marks on them, which I have to be very careful of not speaking about because that is only taught in Aboriginal culture time.’

Background Briefing is investigative journalism at its finest, exploring the issues of the day and examining society in a lively on-the-road documentary style.

