Kimberley Visions: Keeping Balanggarra Country Healthy

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Abstract

Kimberley Visions is a project that helps keep Balanggarra Country healthy by finding and caring for the places the Old People left behind. My name is Sven Ouzman and I’m an archaeologist who has worked on the Kimberley Vision Project with Ian.
Cultural places have rock art, stone tools, places where people camped in Station times, stone arrangements, places to find ochre, and so on. Kimberley Visions has found over 1300 of these places. We work in places the traditional owners and directors tell us we can go.
Rangers work with us to record and manage places.
Traditional owners assisted the team with all aspects of fieldwork. The Balanggarra Rangers provided invaluable logistical support and involvement in fieldwork, transporting camping gear and helicopter fuel into the remote field camps, checking camera traps installed at art sites to document illegal visitation, and collaborating with team members to survey new areas of Balanggarra Country in association with a proposed Remote Ranger Base.
Balanggarra Country has some of the world’s best rock art. Through the rock art, and by studying where people lived, we see how the Old People lived. People used rock art to send information to other people about who they are as a group. These images can include the stone tools and baskets people used, and the plants and animals they held important. Some images are only used in one group’s area, while other images can be used over huge distances, even coming from desert areas!
We have also looked at the plants and animals people used and ate. Important discoveries like the 50,000-year-old Minjiwarra site on the Drysdale and the big living site at Oomarri have made world news. Artifacts, including this stone axe, were found. New discoveries are being made all the time.
We have been working with Balanggarra since 2011 and hope we can have the privilege of working on this beautiful country for many more years. Thank you.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTwo Ways to See
Subtitle of host publicationA Rock Art Research Journey
EditorsIan Waina
Place of PublicationMelbourne
PublisherRock Art Australia
Chapter4
Pages57-63
Number of pages7
Edition1st
ISBN (Print)978-0-646-88841-5
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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