Abstract
The Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga) is on Australia’s National Heritage List because of its significant rock art and numerous stone structures. When people first started living in this arid landscape of the north-west coast, 50,000 years ago, the shoreline was 160 kilometres further north-and west. The Archipelago was created around 7,000 years ago, with sea-level rise following the termination of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Photogrammetry and microphotography (using LiDAR, RPA and Dino-Lite™) are used here to demonstrate how this combination of different scales of imaging can be used to better document the terrestrial Murujuga features record. This paper explores the utility of photogrammetry generated by LiDAR and RPA to locate and reconstruct two types of Aboriginal stone structure (standing stones and house structures) which are prevalent across the Archipelago. These combined techniques were deployed to better visualise and understand site distribution with a view to using the landscape scale methods for the detection of similar features in submerged contexts in the adjacent waters. It has been predicted that this more robust site type would be likely to survive being submerged by sea level rise, and hence this was a site type which we were interested in locating remotely. As well as undertaking systematic terrestrial survey and recording of sample areas across Rosemary Island, topographic LiDAR was flown on two occasions (2017, 2018). These flights were separated by a wildfire which burnt most of the spinifex cover across the island. It highlights the potential – and shortcomings – of remote sensing this type of cultural sites in a naturally rocky and spinifex-covered landscape. It makes recommendations about how to better implement LiDAR to assist in the understanding of the landscape context of these hunter-gatherer stone features.
Highlights
The culturally and scientifically significant terrestrial and marine environments of the National Heritage Listed Dampier Archipelago, north-western Western Australia, have been the research focus of two Australian Research Council projects: The Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming (MLP) and Deep History of Sea Country (DHSC)
Given the high density of GPS located and recorded stone features on Rosemary Island, we investigated the potential of remote sensing including (1) air photo, (2) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) imagery, and (3) LiDAR point clouds to identify these known terrestrial sites
We focus on individual cultural sites, where we have used aerial imagery collected by a range of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) to derive very high resolution RGB-imagery and photogrammetry-derived digital surface models (DSM) to successfully map the stone features
Summary
The culturally and scientifically significant terrestrial and marine environments of the National Heritage Listed Dampier Archipelago, north-western Western Australia, have been the research focus of two Australian Research Council projects: The Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming (MLP) and Deep History of Sea Country (DHSC). The MLP was focused on systematic survey and recording of terrestrial landscapes to understand how and when people produced art, and changed their use of these places, through time. In order to gain a better understanding of the association between landform and archaeological site types, both these projects took advantage of a suite of airborne remote and geophysical survey techniques to investigate, at multiple scales, marine and terrestrial landscapes of the Archipelago. We know that Murujuga was occupied during the LGM (McDonald et al 2018), and recent archaeological investigations of Murujuga’s islands indicate that people were fairly intensively occupying these landscapes by the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene transition (e.g. Dortch et al 2019b; McDonald and Berry 2016). This paper explores the utility of some of the innovative approaches used by MLP and DHSC archaeologists, geomorphologists
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
