
A montage of 39 photographs of the 17,300 year old kangaroo with an accompanying illustration.
The two-metre-long kangaroo is painted on the ceiling of a rock shelter on the Unghango clan estate, in Balanggarra country in the north-eastern Kimberley region, WA.
A research team led by Damien Finch from the University of Melbourne used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of mud-wasp nests below and above the painting.
"In these old paintings, the ochre pigment used is an iron oxide," says Finch. "It cannot be dated with any of the current scientific dating techniques. The alternative is to date any suitable material found directly under or on top of the painting. In our work we date mud-wasp nests that are commonly found in rock shelters in northern Australia."
The team found nests below the painting were 17,500 years old, while nests above it were 17,100 years old. This means the painting is in between these two date ranges, "most likely 17,300 years old", according to Finch.
There is older evidence of rock painting in Australia, but not "in-situ" - that is, still on a cave or rock wall. "Two very old fragments of rock with ochre or charcoal lines have been discovered in archaeological excavations in northern Australia," says Finch.
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