Murujuga Cultural Landscape

I'm going to put it out there right at the start of this review: the Murujuga Cultural Landscape is one of the most impressive collections of petroglyphs (rock carvings) I've ever seen. It would be justifiably world-renowned if it were located on other continents, and certainly ranks well above many of the other rock art collections already inscribed on the World Heritage List. So what is it?

The cultural landscape is centred on Murujuga National Park, part of the Burrup Peninsula in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. It's located on the traditional lands of the Ngarluma, Yindjibarndi, Yaburara, Mardudhunera, and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo peoples, collectively known as the Ngarda-Ngarli. The national park is about 37,000 hectares, so it's not an extremely large area, but it's packed with an estimated one million petroglyphs. It's believed to be the densest collection of hunter-gatherer petroglyphs anywhere in the world, and what's truly amazing about Murujuga is the incredible variety of petroglyphs, in both age and subject matter. The oldest petroglyphs here have been dated at around 40,000 years old, while some are as recent as the 19th century.

Petroglyphs of humans are quite common with a variety of imagery, ranging from static figures to abstract faces, hunting scenes and ceremonial activities. There's also lots of abstract spiritual art, telling stories of the Marrga, the ancestral beings who created the world.

But it's the imagery of animals at Murujuga that we found most striking. There's so many petroglyphs and so many …