Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming—A Long and Short History of this Cultural Landscape with Reference to Rock Art, Stone Features, Excavations and Historical Sites Recorded across the Dampier Archipelago between 2014 and 2018: Book Review

The edited volume Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming makes an important contribution to the understanding and continued protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Western Australia. The volume explores the red rocky archipelago and islands of Murujuga in Western Australia’s Dampier Archipelago (Pilbara region). The region holds a rich cultural land- and seascape that contains over a million pitted and abraded engravings of land and sea animals, tracks, fishing scenes, intricate circular and linear designs and evidence for c. 50,000 years of occupation (p.5). The volume played a key role in the recent nomination of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape for UNESCO World Heritage listing on the basis of its outstanding universal ancient and continuing cultural value. Led by the Ngarda-Ngarli peoples represented by the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, the nomination was Australia’s second World Heritage nomination to be led by Traditional Owners and Custodians, following the groundbreaking inscription of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in late 2019. Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming acted as a companion document to the main dossier, providing key details of Ngarda-Ngarli ancestors’ enduring and adaptive management of land and sea Country and their symbolic relationships to place, people and animals (p.8).