Rebuilding Juukan Gorge: Traditional owners turn to France for restoration plan

Five years after Rio Tinto destroyed a 47,000-year-old sacred rock shelter to expand an iron ore mine, an ambitious rebuild is underway, drawing inspiration all the way from France.

Burchell Hayes is half a world away from home, immersing himself in the prehistoric art all around him.

Captivated as he is, he's also thinking about his own country on the vast, ochre-red lands of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people.

He and other traditional owners from Western Australia's Pilbara region are inspecting intricate carvings from the World Heritage-listed Lascaux and Chauvet caves in the south of France.

Horses gallop across the cave's rock face, painted in vivid yellows, browns and blacks.

Stags with their oversized antlers branch wildly outwards.

There are boldly drawn aurochs, an extinct ancestor of modern cattle, and sturdy bison with delicate, finely drawn legs.

But this tour group has something else front of mind.

That is the destruction of an even older geographical feature — and the most significant cultural site on their country — the Juukan Gorge rock shelter.

In 2020, it was legally destroyed in a mining blast by Rio Tinto that had been signed off by the WA government, prompting global condemnation.

"It was just like losing that connection to country, like losing a child," said Mr Hayes, the chair of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama (PKKP) Land Committee.

"There was a void there in our hearts."

The Lascaux and Chauvet caves they saw were replicas of the real ones, which were only discovered in 1940 and 1994 respectively.

They were painstakingly re-created with engineering and artistic mastery when the originals were sealed off from the public to protect them from damage by tourists.

The group representing the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people were taken behind the scenes and shown how the popular replicas were made, to inform their own ambitious project of cultural restoration.

The brief is nothing less than recreating the entire Juukan rock shelter on the site of the original — 1,500 kilometres north of Perth.

The project, instigated by traditional owners and funded by Rio Tinto, would build over the remains and incorporate rubble from the disintegrated shelter into a new concrete structure that could survive the harsh Pilbara climate.

"The important thing is we need to do it right, proper, the first time because we may not get a second chance at this," Mr Hayes said.

Filling a void

Juukan had been used by Indigenous people for 47,000 years until Rio Tinto blew it up in order to expand an adjacent iron ore mine.

Traditional owners believe Juukan was used as an important cultural and ceremonial site and a place to eat, sleep and live.

Thousands of artefacts of flaked stones, tools, stone seats, grinding stones and even human hair from a hair belt have been found there.

Resurrecting Juukan is part of the healing for the PKKP people to re-establish connection to country.

Unlike France's replicas, which attract millions of visitors every year, the Juukan reconstruction is not being built as a tourist attraction.

The purpose is to restore a sacred place for the PKKP people themselves and help heal the damage done by Rio Tinto.

"It's going to fill that void in landscape," Mr Hayes said.

"We'll go back and enjoy it for what it is and we'll take future generations of Kurrama people there to enjoy and share those stories."

The cost of rebuilding Juukan is unknown.

For comparison, the Chauvet replica alone took eight years to build, involved 500 engineers, designers and artists and cost almost $100 million before opening in 2015.

And that's in a climate-controlled, purpose-built building in France.

The Juukan reproduction will be outdoors, exposed to the searing Pilbara heat and wind in an extremely remote part of the country.

It's hoped as much of the shelter as possible will be built on-location.

Chauvet's technical director Celine Mataja said her team was daunted by the weight of their task.

She said they were guided by a Mark Twain quote.

Digital revival

Digital technology was key in the Chauvet project, as it has been in the Juukan revival.

A 3D scan of the original Chauvet cave was used to construct a steel frame.

Mortar was sprayed over the top and sculpted into the cave walls.

Artists then meticulously replicated the paintings.

But Juukan has no historic artwork to replicate.

All the focus is on building a solid, permanent structure that requires no maintenance.

Daniel Browne, director of Perth's CDM Studios which is at the forefront of work to rebuild Juukan, was also on the French trip.

His technicians have created a detailed virtual reality digital version of the Juukan rock shelter, based on the memories of traditional owners and photos.

They've also made detailed imprints of Pilbara rock to replicate its rough texture.

Those will shape concrete moulds to make each piece of the new shelter.

The French caves used very thin moulds, but the Juukan moulds will be structural to bear the weight of the concrete mix.

"We've got some phenomenal engineering firepower who are going to work out the perfect mix design for this," Mr Browne said.

"That that will be something which Rio and the engineers have rigorously tested."

Mr Browne said while Chauvet used "an insane" amount of metal, the traditional owners have requested a metal-free design so it doesn't corrode.

The traditional owners also want the Juukan replica to have the feel of the original, which is why remnants of the original will go into the concrete mix.

Chauvet's project manager Michel Clement was optimistic.

"When they use, for example, the rubble to make the concrete — not just for the colouring but also because the original cave needs to be in the concrete — that's symbolic, that's the spirit of it," he said after meeting the PKKP delegation.

Jacky Leboeuf, from specialist engineering company Freyssinet which worked on the Chauvet recreation, singled out another essential ingredient.

"I think it's about passing on to everyone involved the passion for this construction, the reasons for this reconstruction. Everyone needs to be on board," he said.

Mr Hayes knows it will be a huge challenge.

But he's clear eyed about the goal.

"When we walk back in for the first time … we have that same sense of feeling and belonging," he said.

Credits

Words: Nicolas Perpitch

Videos and photos: Romain Baudry, Astrid Landon and Leonie Allard in France

Production: Phoebe Pin, Gian De Poloni