Buraminya (Cave Rock): an important cultural site in the Ngadju Native Title area, southern Western Australia

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 6 months ago

ABSTRACT – Two rock art sites have been recently recorded from the Ngadju Native Title lands of southern Western Australia: Buraminya (Cave Rock) and Cave Hill. Here we present the first published recording of the greater Buraminya site, which has a large repertoire of hand stencils, hand prints, paintings, drawing and scratchings. The use of scratching in southern Western Australia has not been previously documented, nor has the practice (here represented by a single example) of the combining a printed hand within a hand stencil forming a unified composition. Two discrete art periods were identified: an early phase of red hand stencils, and a later phase where media, techniques, colours and motif types became greatly varied. The age of the early phase is unknown but the later phase ceased before dated graffiti was added in 1896. The illustration and quantification of the art at Buraminya now avails its assemblage to be compared with other rock art sites, cultural traditions and regions.