THERE is no doubt that Jinmium is an ancient place. At the physical heart of
the site, located just inside the western border of Australia’s wild Northern
Territory, is a stone monolith rising 40 metres above the sandy floodplain.
Surrounding this impressive hunk of sandstone are smaller, but still enormous
boulders, poised like patient attendants. The arrangement of the stones is
natural, but what has been carved and painted on them is not.
The layers of rock art covering the monolith and its companions betray
Jinmium as an ancient cultural centre. Recently painted spirits and other
mysterious figures lie over earlier images of kangaroos, goannas, and other
animals. And beneath all these weathered images are nearly ten thousand carved
circular engravings, known as cupules.
When Richard Fullagar, an archaeologist with the Australian Museum in Sydney,
first saw Jinmium he guessed that it would reveal important details about the
lives of some of Australia’s earliest settlers. Still, he could never have
predicted the media frenzy and scientific furore that erupted when he and his
colleagues first told the world of their discoveries. “I was staggered,” recalls
Fullagar, who says the response, both local and international, was swift and
negative. The cause of the hullabaloo was the estimate made by Fullagar and his
colleagues of just how long humans have been visiting Jinmium.
Fullagar, David Price and Lesley Head of the University of Wollongong and
Paul Taçon of the Australian Museum say that stone tools at Jinmium could
date back 176 000 years and its rock art 75 000 years. If true, this means the
team has pushed back the date…