The Pilbara Coast is known for it’s mining of natural gas, salt and iron ore. It’s also home to thousands of Aboriginal rock carvings called petroglyths. The petroglyths are estimated to be over 300,000 years old.
Everywhere you look you see ancient weathered rocky landscapes. The rocks are more than 600 million years old. The rocks have weathered and cracked to form a unique landscape.
Mountains and hills of broken rock, part of the Murujuga National Park.
This is part of Deep Gorge where you can see the indigenous rock art.
This Aboriginal rock art is dated to be about 20 - 30 thousand years old. Petroglyths are not paintings, instead they are made by removing the outer surface of the rock.
Several different techniques are used to remove the surface of the rock, including pounding, abrading and scaring. There is estimated to be 500,000 to 1 million petroglyths in the Burrup Peninsula area. Approximately 10,000 are present in the Deep Gorge site alone.
Next to the petroglyth rock, we noticed what appears to be a grinding groove. Maybe it was used for grinding ochre.
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