Newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia. 

The project, led by Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Research, Professor Paul Taçon, in partnership with Traditional Owners, documented 14 new images of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, as it also known, and two of the Tasmanian devils from two locations in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. 

Tasmanian devils and thylacines are widely believed to have disappeared from mainland Australia about 3,000 years ago. The newly documented artworks—some of which may be less than 1,000 years old—raise the possibility that these species survived longer in northern regions than previously thought. 

newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia. 

The project, led by Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Research, Professor Paul Taçon, in partnership with Traditional Owners, documented 14 new images of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, as it also known, and two of the Tasmanian devils from two locations in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. 

Tasmanian devils and thylacines are widely believed to have disappeared from mainland Australia about 3,000 years ago. The newly documented artworks—some of which may be less than 1,000 years old—raise the possibility that these species survived longer in northern regions than previously thought. 

Approximately 3,500 years ago, in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo in present-day Villena, a fire razed dwellings and workshops to the ground. However, the same fire that destroyed part of the village also helped preserve an object that is incredibly hard to document in archaeology: a loom with a largely wooden structure.

Recently published in the journal Antiquity, this finding by a team of researchers from several Spanish universities is one of only a few known cases in Mediterranean Europe in which both the set of loom weights and components made from wood and plant fibres have been preserved.