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Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#61

Post by aflag »

fleshdaddy wrote: post #43
josephcsible wrote: post #20

My suspicion is that whoever did this was emboldened when none of the climate change vandals who did similar things to paintings in museums got any real punishment. If they all got a year or two in prison instead, I don't think this would have happened.

I don’t think so. The climate change stunts didn’t actually destroy anything as they only glued themselves/threw soup on the glass coverings. If they were really looking at it they’d see the different between that and this sort of irreversible damage.

At least some of the protesters did destroy some paintings. Eg.: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-protesters-campai...

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#62

Post by defrost »

G'damn irresponsible teenagers ...

Pilbara mining blast confirmed to have destroyed 46,000yo sites of 'staggering' significance

> "Deeply troubled" traditional owners in the western Pilbara have had their worst fears confirmed after Rio Tinto detonated explosives near culturally significant sites dating back more than 46,000 years.

> A Rio Tinto spokesperson said blasting in Juukan Gorge occurred over the weekend, and on Tuesday the company confirmed its ancient rock shelters were destroyed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/rio-tinto-blast-destr...

Just to clear, this sort of fuckery has a direct impact on the HN tech world, there are many mapped resources on indigenous lands with mineral leases held by Rio Tinto and others.

( eg: $64 billion Resolution Copper Arizona for one )

If mining companies cannot keep promises to respectfully operate around cultural sites without damaging them .. then resistance to granting permissions to proceed drastically increases.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#63

Post by noobermin »

neodymiumphish wrote: post #35
astine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artwork such as this is not just important from an artistic perspective, it's important from an archeological, historical, and paleontological perspective. There is a lot we have learned from ancient rock art and probably a lot that we have yet to learn. For example, by exampining the kinds of animals in ancient cave paintings paleontologists have been able to learn certain details about the appearance and behavior o…

Considering the security established around it and the knowledge of what it was, I find it hard to believe that enough photos, samples, etc, weren't taken before this vandalism to have gained or have the capacity to gain any knowledge these drawings may provide.

You'd be surprised, especially since the security wasn't as tight to keep them out. There aren't as many archeologists or anthropologists as they are other types of researchers out there.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#65

Post by sacrosancty »

remote_phone wrote: post #23

Let’s hope these fuckers are stupid enough to post on social media. The punishment should be 10 years, not 6 months.

Draconian punishments aren't a good way to protect ancient relics. It only takes one person to not even know what the site is, let alone the punishment, to ruin it forever. Also, it's cruel read-a-news-story desire for vengeance for damaging something you probably never even knew existed in the first place.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#66

Post by astine »

TheNorthman wrote: post #38
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a…

what makes a building socialist?

Buildings in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact contries during the Cold War were often constructed with an ideological bent in mind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_...

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#67

Post by chimineycricket »

TheNorthman wrote: post #38
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a…

what makes a building socialist?

Microdistrict type buildings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#68

Post by krsdcbl »

josephcsible wrote: post #33
brutusborn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m Australian and I’m pretty sure it’s just children trying to be “spooky”. I doubt they were trying to vandalise Aboriginal art, since it seems they only covered finger flutes which are hard to distinguish as art.

This makes me think they knew exactly what they were doing: > The vandals forced their way past barbed wire and dug under a steel gate to get into the Koonalda Caves If they just wanted to carve something spooky into a rock, there were plenty of way easier places to do so.

I guess this specific cave being so off limits might have fueled the idea of picking exactly that one, they might very well have been oblivious to the damage they were doing.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#70

Post by denkmoon »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #36
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #12

I have a friend on a property with cave art here in the hunter valley of Australia. We really don't do enough to preserve it at all. He's responsible and ensures no harm but it's still weird to own private land with 10k+ year old art and have no one really give a damn about it. Compare it to European attitudes, eg. Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstructio…

> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a…

We have the same issues with heritage buildings in Australia too, there's no silver bullet.
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