Event description

For Research Week at UWA, Traditional Owners from Murujuga (the Burrup Peninsula) are visiting UWA to learn about university research and to co-present findings from the first 13 months of an ARC Linkage project, Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming. This project addresses the need to investigate the age of the world-famous rock art galleries of Murujuga and to document what they mean to the Aboriginal community of the region.

A partnership between Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, Rio Tinto, and UWA, all three organisations are providing personnel to take part in fieldwork. The teams are recording rock art from the earliest stages of Aboriginal occupation in the Pilbara and in a range of areas across the Archipelago, to understand this early creativity. They are excavating a range of occupation sites including stone structures and open occupation deposits associated with rock art.

Other members of the team are documenting ancient landforms through LIDAR while others are creating 3D digital imagery of art and structures for virtual displays in museums and using Occulus Rift for experiencing the landscape remotely.

The public lecture will present the findings of archaeological surveys and excavations undertaken so far from across the Archipelago, and the Peninsula itself, including the earliest evidence found here so far – occupation from c.21,000 years ago.

Speakers

SPEAKER - Joe Dortch

Dr Joe Dortch

  • The University of Western Australia
  • Research Fellow, Centre for Rock Art Research and Management
SPEAKER - Jo McDonald

Professor Jo McDonald

  • The University of Western Australia
  • Director Centre for Rock Art Research and Management

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