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Boulder Sunday by @shasta - Aboriginal Art on the Kimberly Rocks !!

Boulder Sunday by @shasta - Aboriginal Art on the Kimberly Rocks !!

June 2019 · 3 min read

The Kimberley Ranges in Western Australia was always a dream of my to see it's a lot like the Grand Canyon of America but much larger area in size and a lot more rivers and waterfalls which makes it more spectacular you can say it's an ancient landscape covering hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, the Kimberley is one of the world's most precious wilderness regions.


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The Kimberly Ranges is three times larger than England and with a population of less than 40,000 people , the Kimberley ranges is spread over Australia's entire north-western corner and is one of the world's last wilderness frontiers.


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Their is certainly a lot to cover and see in this vast amazing area but my main objective here is to show you some Aboriginal Arts of the Kimberleys. After boating down the King George River and then to the Drysdale River in the Kimberley region of northern West Australia we come to many caves and burial grounds of Aboriginal people.


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I am going to give you some Text: adapted from Wikipedia which will best describe these strange mysterious Aboriginal Art work. The Bradshaw Paintings as they have been named.


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Bradshaw rock paintings are a distinctive style of rock art found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They are named after the pastoralist Joseph Bradshaw who was the first European to discover them in 1891, whilst searching for grazing land for his cattle. The Bradshaws are also known as Gwion Gwion by the local Aboriginal people.


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Scientists estimate that there may be more than 100 000 sites spread over 50 000 km² of the Kimberley. In 1996 one of the paintings was dated by analyzing an ancient wasp nest covering it (using thermoluminescence). The nest was found to be over 17,000 years old, indicating that some paintings are at least this old.


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Debate rages as to who actually created the art. On one side of the debate is Grahame Walsh, an amateur archaeologist and the leading expert on the Bradshaws with over 1.2 million images he has amassed over 21 years studying them. His hypothesis claims that the Bradshaws were painted by a culture predating present day Indigenous Australians.


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On the other side are the mainstream scientific community who believe that it is completely plausible that the art was produced by the local people. Controversy surrounds this debate as it is believed by some non-indigenous Australians that if the Bradshaw art is found not to be Aboriginal in origin, land rights claims by Indigenous Australians may be undermined.


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Regardless of whether the Bradshaw art is Aboriginal or exotic, "mainstream" Indigenous art is also found in the Kimberley region - proof that Indigenous people have inhabited and had cultural connection to the area.


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According to legend, the Bradshaw figures were made by birds. It was said that these birds pecked the rocks until their beaks bled, and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather and their own blood. Now that i will not believe tell me they were done by Aliens and i would tend to believe more but regardless this was some amazing history to see right in my backyard home country of Australia and hopefully some day i will go back to see more of this amazing region.


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