Western Australia is the oldest piece of the earth’s crust at 4.4 Billion years old. Every morning, Australians are privileged to wake up in the land where it all began. The Burrup Peninsula rock art in Western Australia also holds the oldest carved image of a human face worldwide.
'Murujuga is a stride in the footsteps of human history.'
At least 20,000 years before any Sumerian text or Egyptian Hieroglyph was carved.
Largest Petroglyph site in the world.
Over a million rocks were carved, stretched over a few hundred kilometers.
The oldest known carved image of a human face in the world.
The Sacred Site
The Burrup Peninsula is an island off the Dampier Archipelago in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Known by Murujuga to the original people (meaning ‘hip bones sticking out) in the local language, it is part of Ngarluma Country, along with the member groups Yinjibarndi, Yaburara, Mardudhunera and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo who make up the Murujuga Corporation. They have been carving their stories on the rocks and working with stone for tens of thousands of years. There are standing stones, middens, Artefact scatters and much more. Murujuga lies within a low-lying floodplain, skirting a tidal-dominant continental shelf. The archipelago and other islands of the Shelf host one of the most significant long-term records of aboriginal adaptation to fluctuating sea levels in Australia. Recently it has been confirmed that 9000 years domestic structures were built on Rosemary Island.
The Murujuga Rock carvings contain many images of animals and tracks, maps, extinct megafauna and images of the Tasmanian tiger, which is now extinct in the area. A unique carving in rock at Murujuga is the oldest carved depiction of a human face worldwide. There are over a million motifs carved over a few hundred kilometers on the Burrup Peninsula. The largest known petroglyph site in the world.
As with many other rock art sites across Australia, this library's uniqueness is that the original people are still here today to tell the story. Some of the carvings are of ancestral beings related to the story and lore of the local people. Standing stones are a part of fish management and agriculture for many Aboriginal groups across the country. The cultural connection the original people still have to the area makes the stories at the Murujuga site much more ‘alive’ than elsewhere around the world. Murujuga is a stride in the footsteps of human history, a sacred and special place that deserves protection.
“This is a bible that’s been left for the Aboriginal people ” — Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo Aboriginal elder Wilfred Hicks featured in The Sydney Morning Herald February 10, 2017
Potential Damage and Neglect
Right on the doorstep of this sacred and special place is the threatening Industrial emissions created by Gas and Ammonia factories. Experts suggest that Murujuga could be destroyed within this century! Only recently has noise been made to seriously look into the absolute protection of this unique archive of recorded human history. Until recently, the lack of concern and effort to have this sacred place of human significance listed as a world heritage site only demonstrates a poor view and value of what Murujuga and other significant sites hold for Australia.
The Significance - The recordings left behind by the original ancestors at the Murujuga rock library depict two distinct periods in human history, showing occupation through 50,000 years of environmental change:
The Dates
Research over many years has illustrated how the original people have constantly adapted to dynamic environments on the coastline.
Aboriginal People were already settled and living in the Murujuga area 50,000 years ago [Recent findings show that the original people were already in Coastal Western Australia, Central and South Australia 50,000 years ago, as far as the Flinders Ranges]
Aboriginal people still occupied the area 30,000-18,000 years ago, during the last Ice age, when the coastline was over 150 km further out. The Murujuga ancestors have left evidence of their presence through the end of the Pleistocene.
“The different degrees of weathering of particular types of faunal engravings on the Dampier Archipelago provide an outstanding visual record of the course of Australia’s cultural history through the Aboriginal responses to the rise of sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age ” — Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 2007
Stories carved in stone
Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Sumerian Text date back roughly 5000 years.
The new find at Gobekli Tepe dates back just over 11,000 years ago.
Rock carving dates and distinct periods at Murujuga stand out compared to other known cultural and spiritual recordings carved in stone around the world regarding modern human history.
Since ancient times, the original people of Australia have been recording stories and history across Australia. More recent recordings found in Pilbara petroglyphs depict European characteristics through rock art shared across Australia. Noticeable sites are in Arnhem land.
The Stone carvings recently found at Gobekili Tepe suggest a comet strike to the earth 11,000 years ago. The people of Murujuga have been recording and passing on stories such as these through ancient carvings and oral history for much longer.
The evidence is alive in the Aboriginal culture, as Aboriginal people are still here to tell their stories. There are over 100,000 rock art sites across Australia, more than anywhere else in the world. The stories recorded at these sacred sites explain many events of the earth’s history. Aboriginal oral history has paralleled much of science today, by proven sea-level rise, volcanic eruptions, and natural phenomena confirmed for thousands of years, passed on through stories and knowledge for hundreds of generations.
We acknowledge the people and elders of Ngarluma Country, including member groups Yinjibarndi, Yaburara, Mardudhunera and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo who make up the Murujuga Corporation.
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Sources and information
Oldest piece of the Earth’s crust - Hadean age, and Bowring, S. Closing the gap. Nature Geosci 7, 169–170 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2100
Peter Veth, Jo McDonald, Ingrid Ward, Michael O’Leary, Emma Beckett, Jonathan Benjamin, Sean Ulm, Jorg Hacker, Peter J. Ross, Geoff Bailey. (2020) A Strategy for Assessing Continuity in Terrestrial and Maritime Landscapes from Murujuga (Dampier Archipelago), North West Shelf, Australia. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 15:4, pages 477-503.
Murujuga Rockshelter: First evidence for Pleistocene occupation on the Burrup Peninsula 2018
Archaeology and rock art in the Dampier Archipelago - 2017 draft -PDF
Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation – http://www.murujuga.org.au/
The conversation - Cave dig shows the earliest Australians enjoyed a coastal lifestyle
Rock Art - https://www.griffith.edu.au/research/impact/rock-art
Australian Geographic - Why murujuga needs world heritage status
UNESCO - Murujuga Cultural Landscape
Australian Heritage Council - National Heritage Assessment
ANU - Archaeologists find world’s oldest ground-edge axe in Australia
Oral History - How oral cultures memorise so much information and American Association for the Advancement of Science - Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?
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