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Quinkan rock art | |
---|---|
Location | near Laura, Queensland, Australia |
Coordinates | 15°49′00″S144°25′00″E / 15.81667°S 144.41667°E |
Official name | Quinkan Country |
Type | Listed place |
Designated | 10 November 2018 |
Reference no. | 106262 |
Quinkan rock art refers to a large body of locally, nationally and internationally significant Aboriginal rock art in Australia of a style characterised by their unique representations of "Quinkans" (an Aboriginal mythological being, often spelt "Quinkin"), found among the sandstone escarpments around the small town of Laura, Queensland (aka Quinkan region or Quinkan country). [1] Quinkan Country was inscribed on the Australian National Heritage List on 10 November 2018. [2]
The Australian Heritage Commission's 1980 entry on the register of the national estate describes the Quinkan rock art as being located across 230,000 hectares of rugged sandstone plateaux and escarpments 4 km south east of Laura and 50 km west of Cooktown. [3]
Selected sites are open for visits by the public, through guided tours with local Aboriginal guides organised by the Quinkan Regional Cultural Centre. Split Rock, approximately 15 km south of Laura, is currently open to self-guided visitors for a small fee. The Quinkan Reserves, owned by Aboriginal Trustees, are closed to public access.[ citation needed ]
The Australian Heritage Commission's 1980 national estate entry describes the Quinkan rock art as constituting "..some of the largest bodies of prehistoric art in the world. The paintings are generally large and well preserved, and engravings of great antiquity occur. The Quinkan art is outstanding both in variety, quantity and quality." [3]
The two brothers, George Musgrave and Tommy George dedicated their lives to protecting the rock art and teaching a number of younger Aboriginal Traditional Owners about the history and stories relating to their connection to the land and rock art of the Quinkan region.[ citation needed ]
Rock art types include painting, stencil and engravings. Painting is generally in a figurative style, with people, animals and their tracks and mythical beings are depicted, usually in one or two colours. Red ochre dominates although white, yellow, black and a rare blue pigment also exist. Engravings of both figurative and abstract styles are found throughout Quinkan country.[ citation needed ]
Cultural heritage of the Quinkan region also includes story places, campsites and other evidence of Aboriginal people's long occupation history. In the 1870s the Palmer River Gold Rush brought a large influx of European and Chinese miners into Quinkan country, with thousands of miners traversing through here between the goldfields and the port of Cooktown. Despite the violent clashes that took place between miners and Aboriginal people, and the subsequent attempts at control of Aboriginal people by government policy, a highly significant connection to country and culture by Aboriginal people remains.[ citation needed ]
Rinyirru (Lakefield) is a national park in Lakefield, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia, 1,707 km northwest of Brisbane and 340 km north-west of Cairns by road, on Cape York Peninsula. At 5,370 km2 - making it bigger than Trinidad and Tobago and almost as big as Brunei - Rinyirru is the second largest park in Queensland and a popular place for fishing and camping.
Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.
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Laura is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, the locality of Laura had a population of 133 people.
Lakeland is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, the locality of Lakeland had a population of 333 people.
Hope Vale is a town within the Aboriginal Shire of Hope Vale and a coastal locality split between the Aboriginal Shire of Hope Vale and the Shire of Cook, both in Queensland, Australia. It is an Aboriginal community. In the 2021 census, the locality of Hope Vale had a population of 1,004 people.
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Dr George Musgrave was an elder of the Kuku Thaypan clan and a famous Australian bush tracker. He was an Agu Alaya speaker.
Tommy George Sr. was an elder of the Kuku Thaypan clan on Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. He was the last fluent Awu Laya speaker.
The Palmer River is a river in Far North Queensland, Australia. The area surrounding the river was the site of a gold rush in the late 19th century which started in 1873.
The Shire of Cook is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Shire covers most of the eastern and central parts of Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly section of the Australian mainland.
Percy Trezise was an Australian pilot, painter, explorer and writer as well as, notably, a "discoverer", documenter and historian of Aboriginal rock art. He was born in Tallangatta, Victoria but is associated especially with Far North Queensland and the rock art galleries of the Cape York Peninsula. He died in Cairns, Queensland.
Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770. Both the town and Mount Cook which rises up behind the town were named after James Cook.
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Musgrave Telegraph Station is a heritage-listed former telegraph station and now roadhouse at Peninsula Developmental Road, Musgrave, Yarraden, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Musgrave Roadhouse. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 August 1992.
The Olkolo or Koko-olkola' are an Indigenous Australian people of central and eastern Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. According to Norman Tindale, they are to be distinguished from the Kokangol, higher up on the Alice River watershed.
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