Ken Mulvaney, Emma Beckett, Jo McDonald
Almost 1,430 motifs were recorded on West Lewis Island’s basalt geology along with 10 stone structures. As well as having a deeper time depth (including dot-headed anthropomorphs), this art records historic encounters with whalers and pastoralists.
There is limited deep time art production in this part of the Dampier Ranges, but extensive evidence for Holocene art production. Nuanced evidence suggests that Aboriginal people continued to produce art into the historic period, after visits by whalers (in 1847) and during and after construction of a pastoral station in the 1870s. One inscription records the presence of a person known to be associated with the murder of an Aboriginal worker in 1877, while others reveal a visit to the island by Western Australian Museum zoologist John Tunney (in 1901). War time encounters (1944) and more recent graffiti are also found.
Most art found on West Lewis is geometric with variable proportions of tracks, human figures and animals. Grinding patches (such as the one pictured here) are prevalent, as are randomly-made scratched and pecked marking.
Both rock art assemblages are coastal with marine-focused figurative assemblages (dominated by turtles, fish and other marine themes) - interpreted as mid-late Holocene productions.
No archaic faces or decorative infill humans were found here.
Construction of the pastoral station buildings (such as the one pictured) resulted in numerous motifs being moved from their original locations.
The broader landscape surrounding the pastoral station is a highly complex assemblage which can not be easily interpreted for its encounters between Aboriginal people and pastoralists/pearlers.
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All photographs within this monograph were taken by CRAR+M researchers, partners and students, and have been given cultural approval for publication by Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation. Future use of imagery would require additional permissions from Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and CRAR+M.
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