Author: Jane Fyfe
Fyfe, Jane, 2025 Continuity and Connections. Rock art in Bunuba and Gooniyandi Country, Kimberley, Western Australia., Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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This research investigated whether the rock art in the southern Kimberley region (northwestern Australia) reflects the geographic and linguistic differences that have differentiated the Bunuba and Gooniyandi people from their neighbours over time.
Until the Lifeways of the First Australians Project, 2011-2015 (LP100200415), there had been limited archaeological investigation in the southern Kimberley. Two sites dated to >40,000BP, revealed a deep antiquity for the region (Balme 2000; O’Connor 1995). In addition, a dense assemblage of rock art from the region has been mentioned and discussed in the past (e.g. Donaldson 2013; Playford et al. 2007), but its broader significance in understanding the complexity of the past lifeways of the Bunuba and Gooniyandi people has yet to be explored. Given rock art’s ability to act as symbolic markers to encode information about how people expressed their ideas and identities, and communicated with others, my thesis systematically investigated the role rock art played in shaping the southern Kimberley cultural landscape.
Between 2011-2012 I worked with Bunuba and Gooniyandi people at 43 sites across c.18,000km2 to document their rock art, and classify motifs and styles for more than 2,000 rock art images. Data analysis was undertaken using a hierarchical classification system with nine motif classes, refining those through analysis of the form, attributes, and compositions, and their meaning informed by Traditional Owners. Superimpositions were identified in situ and further unravelled with digital analysis. Harris Matrices were used to visualise superimpositions and analyse changes in styles and motifs over time while a spatial analysis was used to identify patterns of motifs and styles across the region.
Using Information Exchange Theory (Wobst 1977) as a framework to explore how people communicate through shared motifs and style, I demonstrate there are likely affinities between the southern and north/northwestern Kimberley for c.5,800 years (Veth et al. 2021), based on stylistic similarities of distinctive Waliarri motifs in Bunuba Country and Wanjina motifs in Ngaranyin/Unggumi Country.
Spatial analysis shows that concentrations of styles and motifs occurred in distinctive patterns; large sites with rock art and large floor spaces were surrounded by a number of small sites with rock art and space for small families. There are more of these groupings close to the Bunuba/Unggumi border than elsewhere in the study area, likely meeting places where ideas exchanged, resulting in greater similarities in the rock art motifs in the border areas than elsewhere in Bunuba and Gooniyandi Country.
Keywords: archaeology, rock art, Kimberley, Bunuba, Gooniyandi
Subject: Archaeology thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2025
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Liam Brady