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September 14, 2006
Below are some photographs of the rock paintings in the Kimberley's (one of the the last great wilderness in north eastern Australia) known as The Bradshaw Paintings. These images are 5000 years old, though some say they are at least 18,000-20,000 years old, if not more. The figures are known as the 'Bradshaw figures' because they were first discovered in European terms by Joseph Bradshaw, a pastoralist from Victoria in 1891 when he became lost searching for the million-acre lease he had been granted.
Group of Bradshaw figures
Though it is unclear who painted these images, these rock paintings can be interpreted as among the first 'written' documents of human culture in Australia.
Zebra Figures
The vast majority of Bradshaw panels are concentrated around seven major river systems. This region is characterised by rugged sandstone and basalt terrain. The few roads that exist are only accessible during the short dry season (June-October). Sandstone escarpments with reliefs of c. 150-250 m, flank major river systems.
In the Times Literary SupplementRobin Hanbury-Tenison says that these 'are pictures of people who had clearly reached a high level of culture. They appear to be wearing clothes, or at least to decorate their bodies with hanging tassels, sashes and arm bands. Many have elaborate headdresses.'
These are elegantly drawn images, visually sophistiscated and having a distinctive style:
cupid figures
This is the work of talented and well-practised artisans in a hunter and gather civilization. Artistically, the Bradshaws are unusually advanced in both technique, breadth and diversity of style. These elaborate and highly decorative images should be preserved and protected, as they are unarguably some of the best and oldest representations of human beings yet discovered on planet Earth.
 
There is a controversy about the significance of these paintings. When the first settlers occupied the area, the local Aborigines told them that the Bradshaw Paintings were "before their time".
Ian Wilson argues that Australia's Kimberley was the cultural hub of the Ice Age world; and that today, it holds within its bounds the world's largest collection of Ice Age figurative art, giving us vital clues to the origins of other cultures and civilisations right across the world.
Graham Walsh, who has spent half a life time trying to establish the origin of the paintings and to decipher what he believes is a hidden language, argues that these paintings are not of Aboriginal origin, but are more likely linked to another race of people from Indonesia or New Guinea.
Others argue that no archaeological evidence exists to suggest an earlier pre-Aboriginal people lived in Australia. The most ancient known human remains in Australia, the 40---45,000-year-old Lake Mungo burials of western New South Wales, are Aboriginal in morphology.
The Bradshaw rock paintings are known as Gwion Gwion to the Aboriginal traditional owners. Further research will indicate whether these image are actually late Pleistocene rock paintings. At the moment the controversy over the origins of the 'Bradshaw' or Gwion paintings is taking place in the context of the struggle over land, Indigenous Australian economic interests, and the representations of Aborigines in the media, the academy and the fledgling cultural tourism industry in the northwest of Western Australia.
These paintings are an important part of Australia's cultural heritage and the living culture of indigenous Australians, and they deserve a prominent position in any global history of rock painting.
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I've just arrived here via a link at wood s lot. I've a passionate interest in ancient rock art and have known and written about the Bradshaw website covering many rock art sites in the world, including Australia. Thanks for this great post! And I look forward to exploring the rest of your blog.