Ian Mannix
Cosmos newsroom
A project to identify and map rock art sites in a long section of the River Murray in South Australia has resulted in an immediate call for greater understanding and protection of the region’s ancient Aboriginal heritage.
This project, undertaken by archaeologists at Flinders University in partnership with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation, (RMMAC) is exploring Aboriginal rock art and rock shelter occupation deposits in what’s being described as: ”the Upper Murray River Gorge.”
It’s a spectacular but little known region and even the description might confuse people as it’s not frequently used to describe that area of river, between Morgan in the west and Overland Corner in the east, a distance of about 90km by road and considerably further by meandering river.
The local council says, perhaps sensing a tourism opportunity: “The Murray River has its own mesmerizing riverside gorge, comparable to Northern Territory’s Katherine Gorge.”
Don Pate, Emeritus Professor of Archaeological Science at Flinders University says the modern river was established between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago.
“The gorge section of the Lower Murray River refers to the region that is bordered by high limestone cliffs.
“The river morphology exhibits great variability with the state of SA. From the state border to Overland Corner (40 km east of Waikerie) the river meanders through a wide alluvial valley bordered by tall limestone cliffs.
“Below Overland Corner, the Murray has dissected the uplifted limestone Pinnaroo Block producing steep-sided gorge topography.
“Limestone cliffs in this region tower 30-40 m above the river bottom. The limestone cliffs decrease in height 30 km south of Roonka near Swan Reach, and wide alluvial flats emerge again. Numerous swamps and broad, shallow lakes occur in the Coastal Zone which continues to the river mouth at Lake Alexandrina.
The rock art research, funded by the Australian Research Council since 2021, was to conduct the first archaeological excavations of stratified rock shelter sites in the region in more than 50 years, and record what’s described as: “a threatened and rapidly diminishing corpus of rock art.”
Traditional owner and RMMAC spokesperson, Fiona Giles, said at the launch of the project: “…it will be a stepping stone in recording our history for future generations”.
The first research from the project is now starting to be published.
“The Murray River has its own mesmerizing riverside gorge, comparable to Northern Territory’s Katherine Gorge.”
Mid-Murray Council
A paper in the January edition of Rock Art Research explores the substantial rock carvings at a place referred to in the paper as “Thurk” (the traditional Aboriginal place-name for the region), an area which was renamed by European settlers as Kingston-on-Murray.
Lead author of the paper, Professor Amy Roberts from Flinders University, says the Thurk Aboriginal petroglyphs (engravings) comprise at least 524 motifs made up predominantly of geometric line elements as well as a small number of other ‘simple’ geometric motifs, two ‘bird tracks’, one figurative design (a ‘fish’) and a possible anthropomorphous figure.
Roberts says the paper also provides “the first synthesis of rock art sites/complexes and motifs from other sites on the Murray River as well as visual symbols recorded from senior Aboriginal ‘knowledge carriers’”.
“These allow us to consider the relationship of Thurk to other cultural places and to highlight and honour the traditional knowledges and beliefs which underpin the rock art.
“Thurk’s placement within the riverscape, its unique geological canvas, lack of observable ‘domestic’ archaeological evidence combined with it being the likely upstream extent of Murray River rock art in South Australia contribute additional dimensions to its cultural significance,” Roberts writes in the paper.
“That Thurk’s rock art, and the broader site, have been desecrated by gratuitous graffiti, vandalism and infrastructure brings into sharp focus Australia’s poor record of heritage protection and provides a challenge to current and future generations of non-Aboriginal people to remedy this past.”
Roberts is hoping that the broader research program will also fill in some gaps in knowledge about the arrival of the first people in the region.
“Whilst the archaeology of other parts of the Murray-Darling Basin, such as Lake Mungo, are known to contain sites of deep antiquity (of up to 50,000 years), the chronology for Aboriginal occupation in other parts of the Basin is less established, Roberts told Cosmos.
“This was certainly the case for the Murray River Valley in South Australia where few old sites had been recorded.”
In 2020 a radiocarbon dating program, led by Roberts’ PhD student Craig Westell, culminated in the discovery of a 29,000-year-old shell midden deposit on the Pike River floodplain downstream of Renmark
Roberts’ team, together with RMMAC members, will work to fill in the picture, and confirm the migration process. Roberts told Cosmos thatthe total number of rock art sites in the region was not known, as no thorough investigation had ever been conducted.
Read more: The River Murray is sick
“There’s been three rock art sites that we have now recorded in the study area, we have also excavated stratified deposits from a significant rockshelter and we’ve identified a number of older clifftop sites as well.
“We’ve done a lot of work out on the floodplains further upstream over the last 10 years, but not much in the gorge.
“These sites are precious, but endangered. There’s an imperative to record and explore these places with traditional owners. The rock art in particular has suffered from graffiti, vandalism, salt weathering, and some rock art that used to exist can no longer be seen.
“And it was one of our thoughts that we shouldn’t let that go on for any longer. And that it was really important that together we try and revisit these places for future generations, and also, so Aboriginal community members can have more opportunity to access the places and to care for them and revisit them over time.
“The flooding in the gorge doesn’t help preserve low lying sites that well either. And one of the things we are exploring is the preservation of some of the oldest sites which now appear to be on these clifftop areas because they’re less subject to damage.
“Even the oldest site, which is up near Renmark, is also on a clifftop site up there. So we’ve started turning our attention to some of these lesser recorded clifftop areas as well.
“A lot of sites around Australia kind of congregate around that 40 to 50,000 year mark. But what was less explored was what happens further down the Murray Darling Basin, in terms of how Aboriginal people first lived in these landscapes down the river, and when did that occur?
That Thurk’s rock art, and the broader site, have been desecrated by gratuitous graffiti, vandalism and infrastructure
Amy Roberts
“And why did it occur at that time? So we’re still thinking through those questions, but finding these oldest sites is allowing us to think a bit more about that.
“In the intervening period around 20,000 years ago, we have the last Glacial Maximum (LGM). So it was a different climate, the river was very different. And that’s certainly a gap that we have, on the river around that time.
Recent research suggests the LGM was a period of extreme cold and dry, during which the Indo-Australian summer monsoon system collapsed, and human populations declined and retreated to ecological refuges to survive.
The sea was some 130-150 metres lower so that Tasmania was part of the mainland. Small glaciers were present in the Snowy Mountains and the Tasmanian highlands.
There is some urgency around documenting and protecting the sites.
“So [the 2021 flooding] created some difficulties for us with the project and getting to places where the water was very high,” Roberts says. “Unfortunately here was a lot of rubbish left after the flooding, which is still being cleaned up. But flooding is a natural process, that also happened in the past.
“That Thurk’s rock art, and the broader site, have been desecrated by gratuitous graffiti, vandalism and infrastructure brings into sharp focus Australia’s poor record of heritage protection and provides a challenge to current and future generations of non-Aboriginal people to remedy this past.”