Rock Art Styles Provinces of Northern Australia (2016-2022).  ARC LP150100490

Kimberley Visions is a 5-year multidisciplinary and collaborative archaeological project investigating 50,000 years of human life through the many rock art traditions of the East Kimberley.

Working with Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, Rangers, and partners the fieldwork has yielded the location and recording of 1350 sites covering rock painting, engravings, marking, stone quarries, occupation sites, burials, stone arrangements, standing stones, cached material culture and ochre sources, and over 600 on-Country days for Traditional Owners. The sites are from the Drysdale, King George and Forrest River catchments with additional research areas along the coast and in the south in the Pentecost Ranges.

Sites are recorded on bespoke recording forms generating a database of over 100,000 images, spatial data, and FileMaker site cards held under license from the Kimberley Land Council and Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation.

In their final year the team recorded a variety of rock art and other heritage sites including a notable and rare engraving site. The project produced nine peer-reviewed papers, conducted four weeks of fieldwork, and a week of community outreach, presented over 20 papers at conferences and outreach events, enabled 54 on-Country days for Traditional Owners and Rangers, supported five PhD and 1 Honours project with panel-wide assistance to one PhD completion, and was active in media and outreach spaces. All PhD (and one Honours) projects are reaching completion. Co-ordinating six UWA volunteers on six site-excavations will allow at least a further 9 peer-reviewed articles to be published. Project findings have been integrated into the UWA undergraduate syllabus and nationally.

A pilot study with the Kimberley Land Council on ‘Fire and Cultural Heritage’ was completed by Mariangela Lanza (awarded an Australian Archaeological Association Student Research Grant). The first cultural heritage fieldtrip and audit of the jointly-managed North Kimberley Marine Park (DBCA and BAC was undertaken in June. The team also co-developed the ‘LARA’ (Looking After Rock Art’) app with KLC and BAC and trialled in the field twice with BAC and KLC personnel to good reviews by Rangers and oversight by KLC personnel.

Negotiations have commenced for handing data to Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, including analysis and research outputs and post-project access and use of data. A Kimberley Visions monograph, under contract to Sydney University Press, will be published in 2022/023. The project has seeded new projects, such as a Fire and heritage project; Cockburn Ranges project; Home Valley project; North Kimberley Marine Park project, and the support of one DECRA application.

Nine peer-reviewed articles were published. This covered work on the peopling of Australia, role of style in rock art, landscape and site evolution, contact cache, a new Kimberley rock art style, identity and rock art, heritage management and a response to Walsh’s discontinuity hypothesis. Kimberley’s oldest dated occupation sites, introduced a new rock art style, and applied archaeomorphology. The research team currently have  six papers in press or in preparation plus a  monograph under contract with Sydney University Press.

Marine Benoit’s stone tool analysis PhD will be submitted end 2020/early 2021. Mariangela Lanza (GIS and human mobility) and Ana Paula Motta (rock art and identity) will submit in 2021 and 2022; Emily Grey (plants in Kimberley rock art) has 2+ years to go. Affiliated PhD candidate Madeleine Kelly is analysing Wardaman rock art, which will provide an invaluable dataset for comparative work between the Kimberley and Victoria River District (NT). Kim Genuite, whose PhD in France used the work he undertook on Kimberley Visions work was awarded with flying colours.