Dampier Archipelago

The Dampier Archipelago is a group of 42 islands, together with reefs, shoals, channels and straits, off the town of Dampier in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Its underlying rock is among the oldest on Earth, formed in the Archaean eon more than 2.4 billion years ago, though the islands themselves took their present form only about 7,000 years ago, when rising sea levels flooded what had been coastal plains and left the higher ground standing as islands. The archipelago is named for the English explorer and privateer William Dampier, who visited in 1699 and named one island Rosemary Island. Five Aboriginal language groups have traditionally inhabited the area, which holds some of Australia's oldest known domestic structures, estimated at 8,000 to 9,000 years old, predating the archipelago's formation by millennia; despite nearby industrial development, the islands retain considerable marine resources.