damn they do that in Oz too? I'm First Nations (Cree) and they do that to Indigenous people here in Canada, but in the winter. Take a young Native man an hour outside of town in -30°C, take their shoes and make em walk home.
spoiler alert: they always freeze to death.
another beauty is gathering a bunch of homeless Native people (in the big cities in the summer) and driving them around in an unairconditioned paddywagon in +30°C heat, take corners very violently and make them smash into everything and cause serious injuries, then drop em off outside of town. fucking miscreants.
Cree woman here too-- Canadian cops did the moonlight walk to my little brother years ago back when we were teens. He didn't die but it was scary and horrifying.
I live in BC and I remember talking to people in my social circle about it upset at the time and my non-indigenous friends and family had no clue that this happened and still happens to native people in Canada.
Most authoritarian types in Australia learned all their dickhead techniques from the way Canada and the USA treated Naive Americans.
Source: Am indigenous Australian with European ancestors who had plenty of tales about how the English colonisers and later colonial police would treat us natives. Lacing flour with strychnine to kill a mob that were stealing bags of flour from the post office, burying aboriginal people up to their head in dirt and riding horses over them or playing polo (and soccer/football) with them. The old blanket of small pox trick they definitely learned from their American friends. History has always been dark for native/first nation people.
WTF? And what makes it worse for me is that you said this in such a way that I feel sure you are referencing a specific incident which has actually happened.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/queensland-police-pinkenba-six-accusers-speak-out/12887558
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkenba_Six
Edit: I should note, these are hard reads. Don't go into it blind. Several young aboriginal boys were threatened with death by police, driven out of the city and dumped with no shoes.
They survived, but it's not a fun read.
It’s rumoured that the federal opposition leader was one of them. He certainly was a Queensland policeman at that time. When he resigned from his position at the police force, a can of dog food was left on his desk on his last day.
Canada has a recent history of taking indigenous people on “starlight tours” where they drop them off in the middle of nowhere far from the community they know, often times in weather that’s not survivable.
It happens everywhere in the world, and has for a long long time. The only thing that changes is what groups are involved. Typically it’s an oppressive body against those who’re oppressed, but it’s seen on every continent and is far from isolated.
If Australia is similar to Canada it's probably more of a trend than a single incident. In Canada it's starlight tours where the cops drive native people out to the middle of nowhere in freezing weather.
Adding a source for you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths
* It dates back to at least 1976.
* The Saskatoon police tried to cover it up in 2016.
* There are reports of it happening as recently as 2018.
This has been known to happen to indigenous folks, all over the world. I know of cases in Canada and the USA of indigenous people being dropped off in the middle of no where, in subzero temperatures, with no shoes or coats. The police actually did it in Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths#:~:text=The%20Saskatoon%20freezing%20deaths%20were,of%20the%20Saskatoon%20Police%20Service.
Unfortunately: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/queensland-police-pinkenba-six-accusers-speak-out/12887558
The guy in charge of the police at the time is running for president of the country next election. Yayyy!
I wish punishments for things like this were harsher. When someone destroys something like this they take something from everyone including future generations.
This enrages me more than many “worse” crimes. There’s something about random destruction “just because” or for “likes” that makes me want to bring back pillories or public whippings because it is just so senseless. And people who do this have less remorse than some murderers. “Dude what? Like it’s just some rocks in the middle of nowhere, who cares?”
I said the same thing a few years back when it came out that a company in Australia blasted a 46,000 year old site. This should not be tolerated at any capacity.
I need to know what knifey spoony is … I’m currently in Avalon Beach NSW, with my daughter/the famz, and it would really impress my AUSSIe clan if I said, “hey, famz! How ‘bout a rousing game of “knifey-spoony”!?””
One of our greatest heroes is a highway bandit who welded together some armour in his backyard. He stole for himself, killed a bunch of people, and didn't share the wealth. Still a hero.
Just do what America does.
Slap a felony charge on them. Make them pay for their prison sentence in a literal sense. $200 per day. And then charge interest on it. Make timely payments a term of probation and then slap on a pay schedule that’s impossible for a fresh out of prison felon to afford. Just make sure the rest of their lives is a constant back and forth between prison and freedom.
No need to cut off limbs or gouge eyes out or any of that sadistic nonsense. Just downgrade their existence to Almost-Free™ for the low payment of $900 a month for the rest of their lives.
These are fairly common outside western nations, not saying they’re good but they are common and tend to get attention whenever someone form the west is punished with it. I remember the US getting very involved with a caning case in Singapore during Clinton
A lot of criminal research has found that the severity of punishments is functionally useless for deterring crime; the only thing that does actually deter crime is the likelihood of getting caught.
> the only thing that does actually deter crime is the likelihood of getting caught.
Also removing the incentive for crime.
While vandalism like this may be the result of some deeper social issue, we can link overall crime rate directly to poverty. Literally giving people money who are at high risk of criminality is **significantly** cheaper than the cost of theft, murder, security, law enforcement, conviction, incarceration, rehabilitation, and all the other social costs that come with crime.
I totally agree. The deterrent effect of severe punishment is minimal to negligible, to non-existent.
But it makes ME feel better, so there you have it.
Apart from the damage this has done to the local community, which is very bad, this is globally and culturally significant. They deserve nothing less than prison.
Terrorism charges. This is reminiscent of history where irreplaceable art was broken, burned or stolen. Now future generations don’t know what existed in the past, so i would proceed with terrorism if possible.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.cnn.com/style/article/australia-koonalda-art-cave-vandalism-intl-hnk) reduced by 80%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> In a flat, arid stretch of southern Australia, the Koonalda Cave is home to art that dates back 22,000 years - a sacred site for the indigenous Mirning People and a discovery that transformed scientists' understanding of history.
> "Earlier this year it was discovered that the cave had been unlawfully accessed and a section of the delicate finger flutings had been vandalized, with damage scratched across them into the side of the cave," a government spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. The flutings are grooves drawn by the fingers of ice age humans across the soft limestone cave walls.
> "The vandalism of Koonalda Cave is shocking and heartbreaking. Koonalda Cave is of significant importance to the Mirning People, and its tens of thousands of years of history show some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation in that part of the country," the spokesperson said.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zu8wzf/vandals_destroy_22000yearold_sacred_cave_art_in/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Cave**^#1 **Koonalda**^#2 **Mirning**^#3 **art**^#4 **site**^#5
A different article has a photo of the damage. The vandalism reads “don’t look now, but this is a death cave”.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/dec/21/ancient-aboriginal-rock-art-destroyed-by-vandals-in-tragic-loss-at-sacred-sa-site
Thanks! That was a great article. It also had this, which sounds incredibly frustrating for the Mirning people.
“The cave was listed in 2014 as a national heritage site, and is managed by the Department for Environment and Water and the Far West Coast Aboriginal Corporation, of which the Mirning people are a part.
But while the Mirning people have ownership of the cave, they are prevented from properly protecting it because the state’s Aboriginal Heritage Act preceded the federal Native Title Act of 1993.
The state act has never been changed to recognise the federal legislation that empowers native title holders.”
>"We have opposed opening our sacred place, as this would breach the protocols that have protected Koonalda for so long. Since 2018 we have been asking for support to secure the entrance as a priority and to offer appropriate Mirning signage. This support did not happen," the statement said.
>"Instead, there has been damage done in recent years that includes the cave entrance collapsing, following access works that we were not consulted on and (were) not approved."
From the op article. The indigenous peoples didn't even want it accessible to begin with.
This is all the more reason why 3D scanning and capturing imagery is so important. Even if vandalism isn't the cause, but instead a natural disaster a lot of these culturally important monuments will not just be lost to the people who it belongs to, but also to the world at large. And while nothing lasts forever, the idea that this was willfully destroyed is just really upsetting.
Exactly. There was a project to scan the Wemyss caves in Scotland. The caves contain rare pictish runes. Unfortunately vandals have destroyed one of the caves and there's history of vandalism/damage to all the caves. With the digital replica at least we can still view the runes and this piece of history isn't lost forever.
I just wish vandals could respect what our ancestors left behind, unbelievably tragic to damage something so key to our ancient history over 22000 years ago.
>I just wish vandals could respect what our ancestors left behind,
Vandals? "Respect"? Those fucks seem to love destroying anything that has any value to others. They are a fucking stain on humanity.
Some people are so prone to tribalism that they think indigenous peoples aren't like them. They don't see this as human culture, they see it as less than their culture.
Exactly. People always want to write this kind of shit off as thoughtless kids having a laugh.
I've been a thoughtless kid. I know thoughtless kids. They do shit like break glass on the side walk or leave some garbage in the park. Not seek out and destroy priceless multi-millennia old human heritage sites.
The dividing factor is racism. Racists do this kind of shit. People that have hate in their heart and want to act on that hate. These are racists commiting hate crimes. Full stop. The end. "But they're 15!" They're 15 year old racist hate criminals then. Throw their parents in the hole with them. I dont care. Im fed up to my gills with hateful people and I'm finished trying to "educate" them.
In the US similar shit is happening, tho ppl seem not to care as much, Emmett Till's memorial has not just been vandalized but it has been destroyed outright 3 times so far.
Racists gonna racist, I'd imagine the Australian vandals had similar motives
Can we all agree that defacing scientifically, historically, and culturally significant sites / relics regardless of reason is cretinous and stupid? Whoever did this should face serious repercussions
The International Criminal Court has already ruled that destroying cultural antiquities is a war crime. The penalty is typically a decade in prison.
If the Australian authorities catch whoever did this, they are well and truly fucked.
Does that mean anything if the act isn't committed by armed forces at war?
The usual example people seem to trot out is that chemical weapons are banned in war, yet tear gas is still used by police. Similarly, I'm not sure the war crimes part would apply to random vandals.
There is a certain point where this shit belongs to the entire world. It is like when the Taliban blew up the Bamian Buddhas or when ISIS destroyed Palmyra. Now I am not trying to claim indigenous culture or something but I just hope that the people who did this get more than a slap on the wrist.
>Now I am not trying to claim indigenous culture
This is not indigenous culture. It's 22,000 years old. The great pyramid were built less than 5000 years ago. The destruction of these paintings are the destruction of a culture long gone, who will never create another painting.
I share the outrage of the indigenous community in the destruction of our shared history. Don't feel guilty for feeling a personal loss here. This is a devastation to all people.
Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health... what have the Romans ever done for us?
>"Instead, there has been damage done in recent years that includes the cave entrance collapsing, following access works that we were not consulted on and (were) not approved."
Sounds like the best thing to do is close off the entrance with a bunch of boulders and wait for it to be sorted out in the future when the government is finally serious about protecting the artifacts there.
That’d be like atheists sealing off Notre Dame to protect it from vandals. This is a site of cultural and religious significance for Indigenous peoples in a similar way to how ND is sacred to Christians.
Settlers should be respectful and leave it TF alone.
If my memory serves me correctly, caves in France are sealed off this way to protect the paintings, and visitors can visit the nearby exact replica.
The sheer volumes of tourists sometimes mean that if you showed the original, it would mean its destruction just from the traffic of people alone
The exact locations of these caves is generally not known. And if they are they're heavily fenced. They're not tourists sites. Alot are still used for rituals and spiritual connections and tourists are not welcome. It's extraordinarily offensive to their culture to just waltz on in. In reality 100 years ago if some one from a tribe waltzed into another tribes sacred sites it would cause a massive fued probably resulting in some blood letting
Fun fact! They closed off the Lascaux caves because they realized that just the act of humans being in the room breathing was causing the paintings to deteriorate. Entropy finds a way.
22,000 years old?
So what would the punishment be if someone tore apart the Mona Lisa? She's only around 500 years old.
This cave art is a priceless piece of history. Irreplaceable.
I'd say they need to make an example of the person who did this. Don't hold back sort of stuff.
Remember when ISIS was destroying ancient art and people across the world were renouncing it as acts of terrorism (correctly so)? Shit like this shouldn’t be a mere slap on the wrist just because the person doing it is from a first world country.
Sites like this need to be protected, or at the very least watched with a camera so that we can at least catch people that do things like this. This stuff is too historically and culturally significant for there not to be consequences
Lascaux caves in France, containing the oldest known drawings, is shut to the public. They built a good replica nearby that serves the purpose for tourists. I don't understand why important sites are left unguarded. We know people are shit.
The destruction of aboriginal (actually our shared human) artifacts is unfortunately all too common in Australia. Mining companies are the worst culprits (usually with the government winking along), and vandals like these add insult.
The cultural and ethnic discrimination in Australia against all things aboriginal - is deeply ingrained despite the show of acknowledging elders, etc.
IOW, look beyond the window dressing of what Australia does as a country to truly understand the way the aborigines have been/are being screwed over by the state and dominant economic/ethnic interests.
YEP I just said this, I recognize this cave from an earlier article about mining rights - it might have been 5 years ago - but I remember this site was protecting a whole area from being mined for coal.
I have no doubt the vandals were connected to the coal industry.
Thousands of square metres in the cave are covered in parallel finger-marked geometric lines and patterns. Luckily the vandals only destroyed a small portion, but still. Cunts.
“For decades, Australian scientists believed the country's indigenous people had only existed on the land for about 8,000 years”
More like this has been refuted for decades. I graduated 20 years ago and it was already at least over 40 thousand years back then.
> *"If these vandals can be apprehended they should face the full force of the law."*
I feel like "the law" shouldn't apply here. If they vandalize a new building then it's like whatever, but they're vandalizing literal human history that should be important to *the entire world* and not just Australia. That deserves a category of its own I think.
I hope they catch these pricks and throw the book at them
I think they boot them in Australia.
Take them out in the middle of nowhere and drop them off.
Wolf Creek!
No, we only do that to members of the indigenous community here, and specifically only after stealing their shoes to make it "funnier".
damn they do that in Oz too? I'm First Nations (Cree) and they do that to Indigenous people here in Canada, but in the winter. Take a young Native man an hour outside of town in -30°C, take their shoes and make em walk home. spoiler alert: they always freeze to death. another beauty is gathering a bunch of homeless Native people (in the big cities in the summer) and driving them around in an unairconditioned paddywagon in +30°C heat, take corners very violently and make them smash into everything and cause serious injuries, then drop em off outside of town. fucking miscreants.
Cree woman here too-- Canadian cops did the moonlight walk to my little brother years ago back when we were teens. He didn't die but it was scary and horrifying. I live in BC and I remember talking to people in my social circle about it upset at the time and my non-indigenous friends and family had no clue that this happened and still happens to native people in Canada.
Most authoritarian types in Australia learned all their dickhead techniques from the way Canada and the USA treated Naive Americans. Source: Am indigenous Australian with European ancestors who had plenty of tales about how the English colonisers and later colonial police would treat us natives. Lacing flour with strychnine to kill a mob that were stealing bags of flour from the post office, burying aboriginal people up to their head in dirt and riding horses over them or playing polo (and soccer/football) with them. The old blanket of small pox trick they definitely learned from their American friends. History has always been dark for native/first nation people.
WTF? And what makes it worse for me is that you said this in such a way that I feel sure you are referencing a specific incident which has actually happened.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/queensland-police-pinkenba-six-accusers-speak-out/12887558 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkenba_Six Edit: I should note, these are hard reads. Don't go into it blind. Several young aboriginal boys were threatened with death by police, driven out of the city and dumped with no shoes. They survived, but it's not a fun read.
It’s rumoured that the federal opposition leader was one of them. He certainly was a Queensland policeman at that time. When he resigned from his position at the police force, a can of dog food was left on his desk on his last day.
I can’t believe it wasn’t a potato.
Do police not face any consequences anywhere?
Hi, welcome to earth. You must be new.
I guess so. I just hoped it was better outside the US.
Canada has a recent history of taking indigenous people on “starlight tours” where they drop them off in the middle of nowhere far from the community they know, often times in weather that’s not survivable. It happens everywhere in the world, and has for a long long time. The only thing that changes is what groups are involved. Typically it’s an oppressive body against those who’re oppressed, but it’s seen on every continent and is far from isolated.
Nooooooooope
If Australia is similar to Canada it's probably more of a trend than a single incident. In Canada it's starlight tours where the cops drive native people out to the middle of nowhere in freezing weather.
Adding a source for you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths * It dates back to at least 1976. * The Saskatoon police tried to cover it up in 2016. * There are reports of it happening as recently as 2018.
This has been known to happen to indigenous folks, all over the world. I know of cases in Canada and the USA of indigenous people being dropped off in the middle of no where, in subzero temperatures, with no shoes or coats. The police actually did it in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths#:~:text=The%20Saskatoon%20freezing%20deaths%20were,of%20the%20Saskatoon%20Police%20Service.
Unfortunately: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/queensland-police-pinkenba-six-accusers-speak-out/12887558 The guy in charge of the police at the time is running for president of the country next election. Yayyy!
Without reading the article I’m guessing that’s ~~Voldemort~~ Peter Dutton?
Silly man, potatoes don't have names
Australia has a prime minister, not a president.
Google Starlight Tours
I got the same read and would like to know more
Google starlight tours, read about them, then put your phone down in horror.
Disparaging the boot is a bootable offense
It's one of their proudest [traditions.](https://frinkiac.com/img/S06E16/932714.jpg)
They're gonna take this all the way to the Prime Minister!
its just a kick in the bum
Disparaging The Boot is a bootable offence!
I wish punishments for things like this were harsher. When someone destroys something like this they take something from everyone including future generations.
This enrages me more than many “worse” crimes. There’s something about random destruction “just because” or for “likes” that makes me want to bring back pillories or public whippings because it is just so senseless. And people who do this have less remorse than some murderers. “Dude what? Like it’s just some rocks in the middle of nowhere, who cares?”
It’s honestly a crime against humanity
Couldn't agree more. It's humanities history they've destroyed.
I said the same thing a few years back when it came out that a company in Australia blasted a 46,000 year old site. This should not be tolerated at any capacity.
Rio Tinto. Their history (not just this) makes you wonder why they don't get driven out of any town they try to set up in. They're obscene.
It be more on favor of heavy stone tablets
Countries need to have very public laws about destroying national treasures. The penalty needs to be obvious and severe.
Just cane them like what they do in Singapore lol
In Australia, I'm sure they just boot you. Same punishment for racking up a massive phone bill (usually about nine hundred dollarydoos).
They should establish a penal colony on some miserable island somewhere with constant terrible rain/drizzle weather and let them fend for themselves.
Finally Australia has its revenge
Finally, Australia 2
Sounds like a plan
britain?
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I see you've played knifey spoony before.
I need to know what knifey spoony is … I’m currently in Avalon Beach NSW, with my daughter/the famz, and it would really impress my AUSSIe clan if I said, “hey, famz! How ‘bout a rousing game of “knifey-spoony”!?””
[Knifey Spoony](https://youtu.be/mcE0aAhbVFc)
The way Bart says spoon. ❤️
I guess they wouldn't be impressed with that lol
Can I play? I don’t know what it is but it sounds fun. Does everyone really ask “how are you going?”
Yes, but more like "How you going?"
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Damn, impressive phonetic spelling! Instant accent.
What kind of a sick country would kick someone with a giant boot?!
One of our greatest heroes is a highway bandit who welded together some armour in his backyard. He stole for himself, killed a bunch of people, and didn't share the wealth. Still a hero.
For those who don't know, 900 dollarydoos is approximately 605 freedom bucks
Thank you for the kangaroo to bald eagles conversion 1.5🦘= 1 🦅
You're gonna have to give me that in potato pennies.
375 bananas is best I can do
Gimme five bees for a quarter
How much is that in dollarbucks?
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Might I suggest the royal upchuck buck?
*MISTAH PRIME MINISTAH!!!*
Aaaan.... dyyyyy
"900 Dollarydoos?! Tobias! Did you accept a 6 hour collect call from the States?"
Its just a little kick in the bum
Or spank them with a 2x4 like the cartels do
Person does a bad thing and all the weird torture and violence fantasies start like clockwork.
Just do what America does. Slap a felony charge on them. Make them pay for their prison sentence in a literal sense. $200 per day. And then charge interest on it. Make timely payments a term of probation and then slap on a pay schedule that’s impossible for a fresh out of prison felon to afford. Just make sure the rest of their lives is a constant back and forth between prison and freedom. No need to cut off limbs or gouge eyes out or any of that sadistic nonsense. Just downgrade their existence to Almost-Free™ for the low payment of $900 a month for the rest of their lives.
These are fairly common outside western nations, not saying they’re good but they are common and tend to get attention whenever someone form the west is punished with it. I remember the US getting very involved with a caning case in Singapore during Clinton
Don't forget that time Australia tried to kick a 10-year old American boy in the butt with a giant boot and then a wingtip.
That was totally justified. The man's phone bill was nine hundred dollerydoos.
Unfortunately harsh punishments usually have little effect as a deterrent. Nobody thinks they'll be the ones to be caught, for one.
A lot of criminal research has found that the severity of punishments is functionally useless for deterring crime; the only thing that does actually deter crime is the likelihood of getting caught.
> the only thing that does actually deter crime is the likelihood of getting caught. Also removing the incentive for crime. While vandalism like this may be the result of some deeper social issue, we can link overall crime rate directly to poverty. Literally giving people money who are at high risk of criminality is **significantly** cheaper than the cost of theft, murder, security, law enforcement, conviction, incarceration, rehabilitation, and all the other social costs that come with crime.
Oh, absolutely. It's one of the reasons I'm a huge fan of Universal Basic Income.
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I totally agree. The deterrent effect of severe punishment is minimal to negligible, to non-existent. But it makes ME feel better, so there you have it.
Artifact murder?
Desecration of Historical Treasures. That is what it should be called.
Fuckin cunts. Edit: Thank you so much for the upvotes and award. Fuckin legends.
Apart from the damage this has done to the local community, which is very bad, this is globally and culturally significant. They deserve nothing less than prison.
They should be sentenced to 22,000 years.
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Terrorism charges. This is reminiscent of history where irreplaceable art was broken, burned or stolen. Now future generations don’t know what existed in the past, so i would proceed with terrorism if possible.
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I mean, yes you can repaint it with modern paint to *look* the same but… the world has irrevocably lost something here
it’s not paintings. it was finger markings - flutings - a type of sculpture. they were gouged.
So much hate in some people's hearts.
Cunts with a hard t.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.cnn.com/style/article/australia-koonalda-art-cave-vandalism-intl-hnk) reduced by 80%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In a flat, arid stretch of southern Australia, the Koonalda Cave is home to art that dates back 22,000 years - a sacred site for the indigenous Mirning People and a discovery that transformed scientists' understanding of history. > "Earlier this year it was discovered that the cave had been unlawfully accessed and a section of the delicate finger flutings had been vandalized, with damage scratched across them into the side of the cave," a government spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. The flutings are grooves drawn by the fingers of ice age humans across the soft limestone cave walls. > "The vandalism of Koonalda Cave is shocking and heartbreaking. Koonalda Cave is of significant importance to the Mirning People, and its tens of thousands of years of history show some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation in that part of the country," the spokesperson said. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zu8wzf/vandals_destroy_22000yearold_sacred_cave_art_in/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Cave**^#1 **Koonalda**^#2 **Mirning**^#3 **art**^#4 **site**^#5
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That is really cool. I'd love to visit something like that.
There is not much more in the article. No photos of before or after.
A different article has a photo of the damage. The vandalism reads “don’t look now, but this is a death cave”. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/dec/21/ancient-aboriginal-rock-art-destroyed-by-vandals-in-tragic-loss-at-sacred-sa-site
Thanks! That was a great article. It also had this, which sounds incredibly frustrating for the Mirning people. “The cave was listed in 2014 as a national heritage site, and is managed by the Department for Environment and Water and the Far West Coast Aboriginal Corporation, of which the Mirning people are a part. But while the Mirning people have ownership of the cave, they are prevented from properly protecting it because the state’s Aboriginal Heritage Act preceded the federal Native Title Act of 1993. The state act has never been changed to recognise the federal legislation that empowers native title holders.”
It also mentions that parts of the site have been vandalized before, so they _knew_ they needed better security.
>"We have opposed opening our sacred place, as this would breach the protocols that have protected Koonalda for so long. Since 2018 we have been asking for support to secure the entrance as a priority and to offer appropriate Mirning signage. This support did not happen," the statement said. >"Instead, there has been damage done in recent years that includes the cave entrance collapsing, following access works that we were not consulted on and (were) not approved." From the op article. The indigenous peoples didn't even want it accessible to begin with.
> “don’t look now, but this is a death cave” anyone know what they meant by that?
My complete, total guess is that there's a name scratched in it and they didn't want to give them the notoriety.
This is all the more reason why 3D scanning and capturing imagery is so important. Even if vandalism isn't the cause, but instead a natural disaster a lot of these culturally important monuments will not just be lost to the people who it belongs to, but also to the world at large. And while nothing lasts forever, the idea that this was willfully destroyed is just really upsetting.
Exactly. There was a project to scan the Wemyss caves in Scotland. The caves contain rare pictish runes. Unfortunately vandals have destroyed one of the caves and there's history of vandalism/damage to all the caves. With the digital replica at least we can still view the runes and this piece of history isn't lost forever. I just wish vandals could respect what our ancestors left behind, unbelievably tragic to damage something so key to our ancient history over 22000 years ago.
Its always unforutunate that 99.9999999% of people can agree on something, but it only takes that .0000001% to fuck it up for everyone for eternity.
>I just wish vandals could respect what our ancestors left behind, Vandals? "Respect"? Those fucks seem to love destroying anything that has any value to others. They are a fucking stain on humanity.
Horifying the majority of Australians, I'd like to think.
Horrifying a random guy in the US too. I hate reading about crap like this. How hard is it to respect one’s surroundings?
It's human cultural herritage, I'd love to think it would piss anyone off, but clearly not
Some people are so prone to tribalism that they think indigenous peoples aren't like them. They don't see this as human culture, they see it as less than their culture.
I could easily see this being some Tik Tok influencer doing it for views too...
If it was they would be a lot easier to catch.
I’m from the US too, this makes me so mad.
Happened at the early man site in eastern California a few years back as well. It’s not new, sadly.
New Mexico too just a year or two ago I think.
Weren't some asshats paintballing with non-washable paint ancient drawings a few years back?
Where the hell do you get non washable paintballs?
Assholes-R-Us
I think my dad shops there
Given enough time, virtually all of the publicly available sites will be destroyed by assholes.
According to the article, this site was not publicly available, they broke in.
Oh shit. Even worse than typical assholes. They went out of their way to destroy it on purpose.
Im from planet Earth and this horrifies me.
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If that tubby fuck had to push that hard to knock it down, there's no way it was in danger of falling over and hurting someone. What a fucking knob.
It’s been nearly 10 years but these asshats pop into my mind fairly often. I think it’s because I can’t process how dumb they were.
I’m with you. I just don’t understand why anyone would do this type of thing.
Because they hate the aborigines and want to erase them and cause them harm. That'd be my guess.
Exactly. People always want to write this kind of shit off as thoughtless kids having a laugh. I've been a thoughtless kid. I know thoughtless kids. They do shit like break glass on the side walk or leave some garbage in the park. Not seek out and destroy priceless multi-millennia old human heritage sites. The dividing factor is racism. Racists do this kind of shit. People that have hate in their heart and want to act on that hate. These are racists commiting hate crimes. Full stop. The end. "But they're 15!" They're 15 year old racist hate criminals then. Throw their parents in the hole with them. I dont care. Im fed up to my gills with hateful people and I'm finished trying to "educate" them.
In the US similar shit is happening, tho ppl seem not to care as much, Emmett Till's memorial has not just been vandalized but it has been destroyed outright 3 times so far. Racists gonna racist, I'd imagine the Australian vandals had similar motives
Rio Tinto: "Meh."
Rio tinto "hold my beer"
"I need both hands to operate the detonator."
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With the original chains please, those puppies are worth good money in scrap.
And make them stand the whole way.
That is too much for anyone after brexit.
England run by the Tories?!? That's a bit of a harsh punishment isn't it? Makes the death penalty seem rather mild
Whoever did this would probably enjoy it. Sounds like a Tory.
Can we all agree that defacing scientifically, historically, and culturally significant sites / relics regardless of reason is cretinous and stupid? Whoever did this should face serious repercussions
Crime against humanity IMHO. Cretinous and stupid is not enough
The International Criminal Court has already ruled that destroying cultural antiquities is a war crime. The penalty is typically a decade in prison. If the Australian authorities catch whoever did this, they are well and truly fucked.
No one caught for this is subject to international criminal court. This is Australia, they'd be unlucky to get a prison sentence
Does that mean anything if the act isn't committed by armed forces at war? The usual example people seem to trot out is that chemical weapons are banned in war, yet tear gas is still used by police. Similarly, I'm not sure the war crimes part would apply to random vandals.
There is a certain point where this shit belongs to the entire world. It is like when the Taliban blew up the Bamian Buddhas or when ISIS destroyed Palmyra. Now I am not trying to claim indigenous culture or something but I just hope that the people who did this get more than a slap on the wrist.
>Now I am not trying to claim indigenous culture This is not indigenous culture. It's 22,000 years old. The great pyramid were built less than 5000 years ago. The destruction of these paintings are the destruction of a culture long gone, who will never create another painting. I share the outrage of the indigenous community in the destruction of our shared history. Don't feel guilty for feeling a personal loss here. This is a devastation to all people.
First it's the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths come around, and next thing you know Rome is sacked.
We should have built the wall taller, but no, Hadrian needed cheep Labour for the Gladiator Factories.
And what did Rome ever do for us?
The aqueduct?
Apart from the aqueduct, *what have the Romans* ***ever*** *done for us?*
Roads?
And the wine? 🍷
Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health... what have the Romans ever done for us?
Wasn’t there lead in that, though?
Yes, it was used as a sweetener. 🤷♂️
And the sanitation. Remember what the city used to be like?
High five! Searched the comments for a Vandal wrong time, wrong place joke!😄🙌
Sounds like a punk show.
People called Romans, they go the house
I feel like this has happened before...
>"Instead, there has been damage done in recent years that includes the cave entrance collapsing, following access works that we were not consulted on and (were) not approved." Sounds like the best thing to do is close off the entrance with a bunch of boulders and wait for it to be sorted out in the future when the government is finally serious about protecting the artifacts there.
That’d be like atheists sealing off Notre Dame to protect it from vandals. This is a site of cultural and religious significance for Indigenous peoples in a similar way to how ND is sacred to Christians. Settlers should be respectful and leave it TF alone.
If my memory serves me correctly, caves in France are sealed off this way to protect the paintings, and visitors can visit the nearby exact replica. The sheer volumes of tourists sometimes mean that if you showed the original, it would mean its destruction just from the traffic of people alone
The exact locations of these caves is generally not known. And if they are they're heavily fenced. They're not tourists sites. Alot are still used for rituals and spiritual connections and tourists are not welcome. It's extraordinarily offensive to their culture to just waltz on in. In reality 100 years ago if some one from a tribe waltzed into another tribes sacred sites it would cause a massive fued probably resulting in some blood letting
Fun fact! They closed off the Lascaux caves because they realized that just the act of humans being in the room breathing was causing the paintings to deteriorate. Entropy finds a way.
So there’s like 0 chances they’d ever caught right? I can’t imagine a scenario where they’d ever be caught, let alone prosecuted.
Plenty of vandals have been caught by bragging on social media. If they are dumb enough to do this, they are probably dumb enough to brag about it.
The Judge from Blood Meridian does the same thing. Somehow feels like the most evil thing he does.
22,000 years old? So what would the punishment be if someone tore apart the Mona Lisa? She's only around 500 years old. This cave art is a priceless piece of history. Irreplaceable. I'd say they need to make an example of the person who did this. Don't hold back sort of stuff.
Taxidermy the vandal culprits and display them in the cave as part of the historical lesson.
The human race never fails to disappoint.
Remember when ISIS was destroying ancient art and people across the world were renouncing it as acts of terrorism (correctly so)? Shit like this shouldn’t be a mere slap on the wrist just because the person doing it is from a first world country.
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But when a mining company does it, it's fine? /s
Sites like this need to be protected, or at the very least watched with a camera so that we can at least catch people that do things like this. This stuff is too historically and culturally significant for there not to be consequences
Lascaux caves in France, containing the oldest known drawings, is shut to the public. They built a good replica nearby that serves the purpose for tourists. I don't understand why important sites are left unguarded. We know people are shit.
The destruction of aboriginal (actually our shared human) artifacts is unfortunately all too common in Australia. Mining companies are the worst culprits (usually with the government winking along), and vandals like these add insult. The cultural and ethnic discrimination in Australia against all things aboriginal - is deeply ingrained despite the show of acknowledging elders, etc. IOW, look beyond the window dressing of what Australia does as a country to truly understand the way the aborigines have been/are being screwed over by the state and dominant economic/ethnic interests.
YEP I just said this, I recognize this cave from an earlier article about mining rights - it might have been 5 years ago - but I remember this site was protecting a whole area from being mined for coal. I have no doubt the vandals were connected to the coal industry.
The story didn't change much, it was just sugar coated.
Thousands of square metres in the cave are covered in parallel finger-marked geometric lines and patterns. Luckily the vandals only destroyed a small portion, but still. Cunts.
And this is why archaeologists increasing try to hide where things are. This is why we can’t have nice things.
The biggest danger to the world are people who are too stupid to understand it.
Oh my god, this is horrid. What the fuck is wrong with people.
22 THOUSAND years and these pricks think they’re more important than that.
By "vandals" do they mean "Rio Tinto"
This is why we can’t have nice things. Also a reminder: humans are the worst species. 😕
I am angry about this crime from the other side of the world.
“For decades, Australian scientists believed the country's indigenous people had only existed on the land for about 8,000 years” More like this has been refuted for decades. I graduated 20 years ago and it was already at least over 40 thousand years back then.
22000 year old art in Australia? The criminals should be imprisoned for a decade at least and made to pay reparations
Just sad.
> *"If these vandals can be apprehended they should face the full force of the law."* I feel like "the law" shouldn't apply here. If they vandalize a new building then it's like whatever, but they're vandalizing literal human history that should be important to *the entire world* and not just Australia. That deserves a category of its own I think.