Juukan Gorge

Juukan Gorge is a gorge in the Hamersley Range of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, about 60 kilometers from Tom Price, named for Juukan, also known as Tommy Ashburton, a Puutu Kunti Kurrama man. The gorge held a rock shelter that was the only inland site in Australia with evidence of continuous human occupation for more than 46,000 years, spanning the last Ice Age, and excavations there recovered animal-bone middens, grindstones, sacred objects and a plaited lock of human hair about 4,000 years old belonging to direct ancestors of the present-day Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples. On 24 May 2020 the mining company Rio Tinto destroyed the rock shelter with explosives to expand its Brockman 4 iron ore mine, despite repeated requests from the traditional owners to preserve it, an act that was legal at the time under a Section 18 exemption of Western Australia Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972.