1st stage projects in rock art research
In 2010-11 the Kimberley Foundation Australia committed funding to seven 'First Stage' projects involving more than 20 researchers from eight universities:
Geomicrobiology of rock art project – led by Dr John Moreau (School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne) will undertake a preliminary investigation into the biofilms occurring on rock art pigmentation and the associated very fine-grained mineral precipitates generated by bacterial action.
Samples were collected in 2011 which provide the opportunity to orient on the processes associated with living bacteria on sandstone surfaces and covering skins, before considering the remains of past organic activity.
Messages in Paint project – An Archaeometric Analysis of Rock Art Pigments from the NorthâWestern Kimberley, Western Australia led by Jillian Huntley, University of New England.
In Australia the use of ochre pigments has been a fundamental practice within Indigenous societies. The archaeological analysis of pigments provides tangible evidence of peoples’ connection to place, their country, and to each other through trade, exchange and social networks. This project, among the first in the world to systematically use Portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (PXRF) on remote rock art sites, will examine processed pigments from rock art sites, unprocessed ochres recovered from excavated deposits, and other opportunistically derived archaeological and ethnographic samples (such as surface finds and ochre sources).
The results of in situ PXRF analysis conducted in August 2011 are currently being compiled.
In addition to in situ PXRF analysis a number of mineral accretions present within the rock art sites, as well as the rock substrate on which art is applied, were investigated during the 2011 field season.
In situ and laboratory based analyses of the base rock matrix and mineral accretions have been undertaken in order to provide contextual information to the Messages in Paint Project and to specialist geochronologists Dr Max Aurbert and Dr Kira Westaway who are currently working on dating the rock art and archaeological deposits of the north-western Kimberley.
Palaeoecology Project - Developing palaeoecological science in the Kimberley led by Dr Simon Haberle [ANU], Dr Cassandra Rowe (Monash Uni), and Dr Ulrike Proske (ANU).
Despite the ecological and cultural significance of the Kimberley little is known about the long term history and variability of fire, vegetation and climate across the region. Key resources required to conduct palaeoecological research in the Kimberley have been developed in the form of an online pollen atlas (Kimberley Pollen Atlas). The discovery of pollen bearing sediment deposits that are at least 24000 years old in the Mitchell Plateau region will help us to develop a greater understanding of the role of fire-climate-people in vegetation dynamics and the maintenance of biodiversity over long time scales.
Further exploratory work on the palaeoecology of wetlands is being conducted in the Broome and Kununurra-Wyndham region and a detailed analysis of pollen and charcoal in archaeological deposits from the Kimberley region is underway.
Paleolinguistic project − Linguistic prehistory of the Kimberley region led by Patrick McConville [ANU].
The plan is to research the prehistory of the languages of the Kimberley and provide a database of the relevant findings. This will include linguo-genetic relationships between the indigenous languages of the Kimberley and elsewhere in Australia. Also, evidence of language contacts and borrowings in the past, and partial reconstructions of the vocabularies of the proto-languages of the Kimberley. Hypotheses about prehistoric human ecologies and social organisation will be presented.
Palynology project − Unlocking the archives of the Kimberley’s past: A pilot study of sediment cores from the north west Kimberley led by Associate Professor Hamish McGowan, Climate Research Group, University of Queensland, and Dr Andrew Hammond, University of Central Queensland, Mackay.
The plan is to determine the potential for stratographic sequencing from selecting cores at chosen sites and from those cores to produce pollen concentrates for carbon dating and investigate palaeoclimates.
Wandjina rock art project − interim project led by anthropologist and author Kim Akerman. The aim is to provide a general statement on the state of knowledge relating to the nature and distribution of Wanjina art in the Kimberley region.
KFA scholarship project – Integrated landscape analysis project completed by Murray Scown who has a Bachelor of Environmental Science from the University of Canberra and is KFA’s first Honours scholarship holder.
