Aboriginal rock art shows Indonesian warships, study finds.
Aboriginal rock art in Australia depicting warlike watercraft has been identified as "fighting craft" from the Moluccas, an archipelago off the eastern coast of Indonesia. The paintings suggest there may have been "physical violence" between the Indigenous people and visitors from afar. The level of detail in the paintings indicates that the Aboriginal people who created them had either "intimate knowledge of the craft through long or close observation or from actually voyaging on them." The existence of the warship rock art "implies instances of physical violence or at least a projection of power" from the Moluccan people toward the Indigenous Australians.