Juukan Gorge 1 and 2 in Australia’s Western Pilbara, are Aboriginal rock shelters dating back 46,000 years. These ancient rock shelters are the only inland sites in Australia used for human occupation since the Ice Ages.
This is not the first time industrial development blasts away sites of cultural significance to the Aboriginal people of Australia. Last year, another cultural heritage site was cleared in Sydney to give way to a $2.1 billion railway line. The destroyed site included an excavated area where 2,400 stone artefacts indicating aboriginal occupation of the area between 1788 and 1830 had surfaced.