Set In Stone
MURUJUGA is the traditional Aboriginal name for the Dampier Archipelago and Burrup Peninsula. It means, ‘hip bone sticking out’, in the Ngarluma Yaburara language.
Acting on a request by Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, and described as, “a significant moment in the history of heritage management in WA”, Premier Mark McGowan announced the State Government would nominate the Dampier Archipelago, including the rock art-rich Burrup Peninsula, for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The only other World Heritage site in WA is Shark Bay. Dampier Archipelago consists of islands, reefs, shoals and channels covering about 400sqkm of supporting unique plants and animals.
Some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation on the North West coast includes radio carbon dating of cutting implements, including spoons, shell and beads unearthed at Boodie Cave on Barrow Island, 50km off the Pilbara coast.
They reveal the now largely submerged northern coastline was occupied up to 50,000 years ago. Murujuga is home to one of the biggest and most diverse collections of rock art in the world, estimated to contain more than one million petroglyphs or rock carvings. Sites range from small scatters to valleys with thousands of engravings.
More than 1500km north of Perth, Murujuga is the only place on Earth where the story of people and their changing environment is recorded continuously for at least 30,000 years. In rock.
Hundreds of thousands of individual engravings, completed over generations, include images of birds, fish and land animals including now extinct megafauna and thylacines (Tasmanian tigers), human figures, figures with mixed human and animal traits and geometric designs.
The nominated area also features middens, fish traps, rock shelters, ceremonial sites and stone arrangements whose origins and legends, like the rock art, provides, “a tangible link to stories, customs and knowledge of their land and resources, connecting them to the events and people of the past and their beliefs today”.
Protected in Murujuga National Park, which covers about 5000ha, visitors can view the ancient art via the Dampier Road turnoff into Burrup Peninsula Road, then right on the road to Withnell Bay.
Details in ’50 Years of Boom, Bust & Red Dog – The Life & Times of Karratha City’, published in print and online by StreetWise Media at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.
Images of art works in ’50 Years’ were supplied courtesy of Merenda Gallery (www.merendagallery.com.au), whose collection can be viewed at SCOOP Property and Finance at 18 Norfolk Street in Fremantle.
StreetWise Media acknowledges the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi, Yaburara-Mardudhunera and Woon-goo-tt-oo people as the traditional custodians of Murujuga National Park.
