Rock art a window into the past that needs protecting

Perth Now

23-06-2025

Spanish archaeologist Ines Domingo Sanz cried when she first saw ancient Aboriginal rock paintings in Arnhem Land.
Multiple layers of artwork, from very faded to more recent ones in vibrant colours, showed the power of the site that people kept coming back to for thousands of years, she recalls.
Dr Domingo Sanz, an international rock art expert, is vice president of the World Archaeological Congress which is meeting in Darwin this week, attracting thousands of delegates.
Australia had the longest continuing rock art tradition and protecting ancient art sites was necessary to preserve the identity of Indigenous communities, she said.
But preservation was also important to the global community as a window into the human past.
Rock art sites in Australia have been dated back to 28,000 years, but it was likely there were sites that went back thousands of years before that, Dr Domingo Sanz said.
She has studied world heritage paleolithic rock art sites in Europe and elsewhere and also worked with Flinders University on Australian sites in Arnhem Land.
"Rock art is what makes us really human, different to other species because it's the capacity of communicating through images which is something that only humans do," she told AAP.
"If we erase this rock art, we are erasing the identity of the people who produced it and the identity of the people who inherited it."
The congress would address conflict and its threat to archaeological sites and people's culture through the destruction of cultural heritage to impose power over others, Dr Domingo Sanz said.
Industrial threats to rock art, such as mining and energy projects in Australia, could be seen as "a kind of passive war in which you are destroying someone else's heritage", she said.
Dr Domingo Sanz said there was technology available to help solve such issues, and mining and energy projects could always be sited away from key ancient sites, which in themselves could become tourist draws.
Rock art in Spain cannot by law be destroyed or moved, she said.
In May 2020, Rio Tinto's destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in the Pilbara left traditional custodians devastated and caused global outrage, prompting the mining giant to apologise.
The Juukan incident was now used in archaeology classes as an example of how not do things Dr Domingo Sanz said.
"I hope the example will help to protect other sites."
Rock art could teach about changes in species, such as now-extinct thylacines and fish being depicted thousands of years ago, as well as indicate changes in weapons or tools used by ancient peoples, Dr Domingo Sanz said.
"There are many topics that can be addressed through the study of rock art, so I think this is a key reason why we should protect it."
More recent rock art depictions can also inform, such as the portrayals of Asian and European sailing vessels arriving with their foreign crews.
"We always hear the story of the colonial arrival to Australia from the Western perspective,"Dr Domingo Sanz said.
"That's one side of the story. What about the other side? They didn't write it down, but they depicted it in the art."