AR
Copyright 2003 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
In process.
See also (click to open):
Kevin Sharpe
The Graduate College, Union
Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University
Founder, Science & Spirit magazine
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
(The book could contain any or none of these.)
1. The true treeless Nullarbor. As my shadow indicates, I am clinging to the windmill, the supplier of water for the Koonalda Station sheep.
2.
The
3. We stopped at a set of Government tanksto fill water containers.
4. Filling the water containers: Even a little lizard poked out its head to welcome us.
5. A street light burns all day outside the Nullarbor Station store.
6. The Koonalda sinkhole: I am always unprepared for a crater four kilometers from the Koonalda Station homestead.
7. Disfiguring graffition the wall above the Squeeze at the end of the Upper Chamber.
8.
In
9.
Over
10. The Koonalda markings must be prehistoric and of a considerable age.
11. Scratches on the floor boulders.
12.
A twisted piece of
13.
Over one hundred and ninety centuries past,
Aborigines perhaps drew onthe wallsof
14. Theylived off scraps from White civilization.
15. Flowers flourish for a short time after rain.
16. The Koonalda sinkhole. Note the Gurneys water pipe.
17. We set up our camp on the surface beside the sinkhole.
18. Large spidersinside the sinkhole discouraged our camping there.
19. Our kitchen in the sinkhole.
20. We lowered provisions and kitchen equipment one bucketful at a time by rope through a meter-wide hole in the overhang.
21. At the Koonalda sinkhole: Dr. Gallus, Neil Chadwick, Christine Kortlang, Kevin Mott, and Ian Lewis.
22. Christine was to observe and draw the shapes of the marks and their intersections with each other.
23. Ian Lewis, a surveyor with a passion for caving in the Nullarbor.
24. Neil Chadwickassisted with the archaeological investigations.
25.
I found the crumbling remains of [a cockroach]
in the upper chamber of
26. The remains of a cave cricket in the upper chamber.
27.
The
28. The land abruptly ended.
29. The surf raged below the stark cliffs.
30.
John Muirconsidered this stretch of country
one of the finest in
31.
A steel ladder starts its
32.
The floor drops to the Gallus Site,
33. A backwards scramble over large rocks interrupts the slide and leads to a short steel ladder that sits at an angle on the dust.
34. A shaft of light touches [the Gallus Site] from the entrance. I stand halfway down the entrance slope.
35.
Dr. Gallus has found what he considers a
prehistoric mining trenchwith sculptural concretions shaped like birds and
other ani
36. Dr. Gallus has marked out what he considers a prehistoric mining trench with ceremonial picks, points down, at each end.
37.
Dr. Gallus has identified a stone with a human
shape [,which] sits propped-up on the surface together with sculptural
concretions shaped like birds and other ani
38.
Sculptural concretions shaped likeani
39. Sculptural concretions shaped like birds. The scales are in centimeters.
40. Looking from the toe of the entrance slope across the Gallus Site to the Upper Chamber and the ascent to it. I made the trail of light when I traversed the Gallus Site with the flash gun.
41.
The
42. Neil Chadwick and Christine Kortlang descending from the upper chamber.
43. From the high pint of the upper chamber looking toward the Ramparts. Note the difference between smooth and rounded boulders and those rough and jagged.
44. From the high point of the upper chamber looking in the direction of the Squeeze. All the boulders here are rough and jagged.
45. Christine Kortlang lying in the Squeeze entrance under the engraved wall.
46. Dr. Gallus at work at his card table on the Gallus Site.
47. From the Ramparts of the Upper Chamber looking at the Gallus Site lit by the glow filtering from the cave entrance and by Dr. Gallus at work at his table.
48. Trench III. Note the top white deposits, the level water-lain intermediate red zone, and the bottom white where Neil Chadwick and Dr. Gallus are at work.
49. At the back of the Upper Chamber of the cave, covering large expanses of the soft, chalky, limestone walls scrawl masses of marks, stroked into the receptive medium by human fingertips or scratched with sticks or stones.
50. Perhaps the most striking symbol near the Squeeze is a set of large and curved parallel lines in a rainbow shape.
51. The marks range from two simple lines that run parallel down a rock face.
52. to meshes of lines as tangled as the wrinkles on an old face.
53. The elephant head rock and trunk. The engravings were so thick that they resembled hide. The next three plates are from this boulder.
54. A portion of the trunk connecting to the elephant head rock.
55. A portion of the hide of the elephant head rock. The scale is in centimeters.
56.
A detail of Plate
57. Smooth boulders, whose inner surfaces usually show engravings, define the edges of the ritual floors or activity areas. The scale rod is in half-meter sections.
58.
Stones pile up against some human line
engravings. These are from the activity area pictured in Plate
59.
Line markings on a boulder in the upper chamber
(see Figure
60. The Upper Chamber shows that people engraved lines and, at the same place, cleared floors of rubble. They cleared them for specific purposes.
61.
I found the skull of a kangaroo, without its mandible,
among the bones on one activity area. It sat on a rock not far off the floor
next to the centimeter scale ruler in Plate
62.
Neil Chadwick later discovered a s
63. Bats swished past our ears and stars thickened the canopy as we sang Happy Birthday to You.
64. We invited Cyril Gurney to the party. He sits with Dr. Gallus on the left.
65.
Warbla is near Coompana not far from Koonalda and
entersfrom a large sinkhole
66. Ian Lewis abseiled down into the sinkhole.
67. I spruced myself up with a plunge into the tank of cave water that the windmill pumped up.
68. The Gurneys Koonalda home sits in the midst of
the Nullarbor.
69. Six emus, four wallabies, two dozen goats, and two horses occupy the yard.
70.
An
overlander on the
71. From the Gallus Site looking at the climb to the Upper Chamber. I squat in front of the central flash of light.
72.
A portion of a marked boulder in the upper
chamber of
73. A portion of the head and trunk of the elephant head boulder in the Upper Chamber.
(The book could contain any or none of these.)
1. The Nullarbor Region, with locations mentioned in the text.
2. Australian non-Nullarbor locations mentioned in the text.
3.
4.
a. The Gallus Site.
b. The Upper Chamber.
c. The Squeeze area.
5. Geological and archaeological time scales.
6.
Richard Wrights sections through the
excavations in Trench III of the Gallus Site (see Richard Wright, ref.
7. Diagram showing terms used for flaking procedure.
8. Features of the inner face of a flake.
9.
A battleaxe or pickaxe found by Dr. Gallus
near the Squeeze (after Sid Fetter; see Alexander Gallus, ref.
10.
An indication of the land surface lost after
11. Expected stages in the weathering of boulders by salt crystallization.
12.
Walbiri symbols, mens ancestral designs,
showing the range of meaning (after
13.
A cylcon (after Lindsay Black, ref.
14.
A schematic rendition by Alexander Marshack of a
meander with its subsequent additions: one attached laterally, five crossing
over and two outside (after Alexander Marshack, ref.
15.
Line markings from a boulder in the Upper
Chamber (see Plate
WARNING
TO ENTER
IT MAY BE TO DESTROY IT
Dedicated to the memory of Peter and Keri
Many people and organizations have contributed to the two Koonalda expeditions that form the basis of this account, and to the preparation of it. My thanks go to:
Christine Kortlang who not only was my companion, but also assisted with research and writing;
Ian Lewis, Kevin Mott, Neil Chadwick, and (especially) Dr. Gallus, who also were on the second visit to Koonalda;
the
Leslie Van Gelder for invaluable assistance in
preparing the manuscript, the interloan personnel of the
Many others, of course, have contributed invaluably.
Kevin
Sharpe,