the sun was burning high and bright on a pellucid morning off Australia’s Kimberley Coast when I stepped onto Ngula, more commonly known as Jar Island. The dull yellow of sand and sandstone contrasted with the vivid blue of the Timor Sea all around me. At my back was a rocky outcropping where millennia ago the island’s traditional land owners, the Wunambal Gaambera people, lay their dead. Before me, a cluster of billion-year-old boulders contained clues about how they lived.
As I passed through these monoliths, I saw that they bore traces of serpents and individuals in headdresses. At more than 30,000 years old, these paintings are considered the oldest figurative rock art in the world, though their age and significance are still debated. “The thing about the Kimberley,” said…
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Conde Nast Traveler (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2024