Rocks of ages

There is an intangible quality of implausibility to Australia that is impossible to put into words. It has an ancient and fragile feel: it is almost a continental equivalent of a tree sprouting out of a seemingly solid rock; precarious and beautiful and not quite sustainable. It is a continent where the unexpected is usual, and yet it is always surprising and thrilling when the unexpected is found, never more so than on the occasion of the recent rediscovery of one of the most significant rock art sites in Australia. The site in Arnhem Land was originally discovered in the 1970s by rock art expert George Chaloupka but the location was then lost until a doctoral student, Daryl Guse, from the Australian National University in Canberra, working with the local indigenous elder Ronald Lamilami, found it again a few months ago. Now a team of researchers, Western Australia, have been over the area and have discovered at Features least 100 previously undocumented walls of rock art, in addition to the one documented by Chaloupka 30 years ago. The oldest Australian rock art is as old as its European counterparts, with some possibly dating as far back as 40,000 years, but, while the art A series of rock paintings in Arnhem Land reveal one of the longest records of human illustration and surprises about native Australian history. Hannah Robertson reports. Older: A depiction of the Tasmanian tiger, now extinct in Australia. Newer: Trading ships reveal long-standing links between native Australians and outsiders.