The remnants of stone structures found at a site called Lake Hart North inside the Woomera Prohibited Area. Archaeologists say it is rare to find similar examples elsewhere in Australia.

An unpublished report obtained by SBS News has outlined the cultural and archaeological significance of Kokatha Aboriginal sites that were discovered in a military testing range in South Australia.

The "very rare" archaeological significance of Kokatha Aboriginal sites within a government weapons testing facility has been revealed, according to an unpublished report obtained by SBS News.

The report describes a cluster of stone hut foundations found inside the weapons testing range that were either used as "habitation structures" or as "low-walled hunting hides".

Fresh concerns about weapons testing at Aboriginal sacred site

“A total of 14 individual structures were recorded, although more could be present,” GML Heritage Consultants wrote in a 2020 heritage management plan for the Defence Department.

“Some of the archaeological site types – such as the hut foundations at Lake Hart North – are archaeologically very rare at the national level.

"The stone foundations at Lake Hart North demonstrate adaptation and creative achievement, with the use of physical stone to provide permanent habitation structures."

An example of the petroglyphs - or rock engravings - found near Lake Hart inside the Woomera Prohibited Area.

The stone structures were found at a site called Lake Hart North inside the Woomera Prohibited Area - about 450 kilometres northwest of Adelaide.

Covering some 120,000 square kilometres, the Woomera Prohibited Area stretches over a landmass about the same size as England. It is the largest land-based weapons range in the world.

Large segments of the Woomera Prohibited Area overlap with the Kokatha Native Title determination.

The Defence Department does not use the Lake Hart North site, and the stone structures are well documented and preserved.

But other sections of Lake Hart are currently used for military exercises and weapons trials.

In January 2021, the body of a Saab anti-aircraft missile was discovered at a different listed heritage site called Lake Hart West. It took 12 months before the missile was retrieved.

Another example of the rock engravings found near Lake Hart, inside the Woomera Prohibited Area.

The GML report describes how cultural sites found within the WPA have the “potential to provide new information on Australia’s cultural history in the arid interior”.

“The variety and extent of archaeological sites, and the extent of information which can be gained from their study at the cultural landscape level, is also considered rare.”

The report also notes that parts of the landscape "demonstrate the characteristics of a location that has been inhabited and used for many thousands of years".

 

"Within these landscapes are a suite of archaeological sites with characteristics demonstrating the evolution and survival of Aboriginal desert culture," the report continues.

"The varied and sophisticated stone tool technology exhibited in hundreds of thousands of artefacts spread across the landscape, but particularly concentrated in the traditional campsites, provides evidence for long-term creative and technical changes in style, materials and use."

'Like pages in a book'

SBS News recently visited a site inside the Woomera Prohibited Area called Wild Dog Creek, which features a number of distinctive rock engravings.

The engravings were produced in the Panaramitee style, which uses sharp tools to chip away at the rock.

“The style is generally acknowledged to date into the Pleistocene – 10,000 years ago – although any one specific instance cannot be directly dated,” the GML report reads.

Kokatha lore man Andrew Starkey is a former Indigenous liaison officer with the Defence Department.

Kokatha lore man Andrew Starkey said the Wild Dog Creek engravings were like the “pages in a book” for his people.

“It’s littered with different types of engravings. There are kangaroo footprints, human footprints, carvings that represent shelter,” he said.

“If you know these carvings, you can read the story - you know where to get food, where to get water.

“This is like a page in a book for us. That is why it’s important these sites are left as they are.”

'There's a hidden splendour'

Associate Professor Neale Draper is a heritage consultant who has independently studied Kokatha sites throughout the Woomera region.

He said that - because the country was open and unsheltered - it could be difficult to precisely nail down the ages of some sites.

"When people mainly camp out in the open among the sand dunes, things blow away, people can spread out, and it's a more difficult archaeological record. "

Archaeologist Neale Draper says the Kokatha sites in the Woomera region are full of 'hidden splendour'.

But dates from Aboriginal shelters found in the neighbouring Flinders Ranges suggested Kokatha could have been around the Woomera region for tens of thousands of years.

"We could assume that the oldest dates for the Flinders Ranges probably apply generally next door," Dr Draper said.

"At this stage, we're up to nearly 50,000 years old [in the Flinders Ranges]."

Some rock art appeared to depict the tracks of long-extinct Genyornis birds, adding weight to these estimates, Dr Draper said.

"There's also some rock art throughout this region, including at Lake Hart. There are birds, there are emus, and there are giant bird prints, which match the Genyornis, an extinct giant bird.

"Probably they were overlapping at times - so 40,000 to 50,000 years."

There are kangaroo footprints, human footprints, carvings that represent shelter. - Andrew Starkey, Kokatha lore man

Dr Draper said the Kokatha archaeology at Woomera was full of "hidden splendour".

“There's a very strong need to conserve and look after that.

“It's very, very important to Kokatha people and other western desert people. It's all part of the Tjukurpa and the other dreaming tracks that run right throughout the western desert.

“The archaeology is remarkable, the rock art is amazing. The anthropology is even more wonderful - because there is still so much cultural knowledge about the traditional landscape.”