Laser-scanning drones find three new Aboriginal rock art shelters in the Blue Mountains
Deep in the rugged bushland of Australia’s Blue Mountains, laser-scanning drones have helped archaeologists find three Aboriginal rock shelters that were not on any official register. All three hold rock art or artefacts, including red hand stencils, and researchers confirmed each one on foot. The survey is part of the Gulamada Project, which brings scientific tools together with First Nations knowledge.
A landscape full of unrecorded history
The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, are steep, forested and hard to walk. More than 200 rock shelters with cultural and archaeological evidence have already been recorded there. Dr Amy Mosig Way, a research archaeologist at the University of Sydney, estimates that only about 10 percent of the region has been surveyed, so many more sites probably remain unrecorded.
Dense bush makes the problem worse. Shelters sit under cliffs and overhangs that are easy to miss from the ground and hard to see in satellite photos.
How the drones worked
The team flew a DJI M350 drone carrying a Yellowscan Explorer version 2 LiDAR sensor. LiDAR fires laser pulses at the ground and measures how long they take to return, which builds a detailed three-dimensional map. Because some pulses slip between leaves and branches, the map can reveal the shape of terrain under tree cover.
The scans flagged places that looked like potential rock shelters. Teams then walked to each spot to check whether it held cultural material. The researchers, from the University of Sydney’s Vere Gordon Childe Centre and the Australian Museum, worked with the Dharug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation throughout.
What they found
The survey confirmed six shelters already on the NSW Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) register and identified three previously unregistered ones. All nine contain rock art, stone artefacts or both. The drone data also gave much more accurate coordinates than the register held, which should help protect the sites in future.
The research was published in the journal Remote Sensing in 2026. Dr Jacob Bongers, a digital archaeologist at the University of Sydney and lead author, said the work offers an efficient and accurate way to locate sites in rugged environments.
Science and culture together
The Gulamada Project is led by Dr Mosig Way and Wayne Brennan, a First Nations mentor and rock art expert. Brennan said the vision from the outset was to create a true nexus of science and culture. Erin Wilkins of the Dharug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation co-led the rock art recording with Brennan. The project received A$248,610 from the Australian Government’s First Nations Heritage Grants program.
That partnership matters. Remote sensing can show where a shelter might be, but custodians provide the knowledge of what a place means and how it should be cared for.
Caveats and what comes next
Nine shelters is a small sample, and the coverage of the survey is not stated in the sources I could read. The release does not give ages for the new art. The team plans to adapt the method for the tropical savannahs of western Arnhem Land and the semi-arid landscapes of western New South Wales, again working with Aboriginal communities.
If the method holds up elsewhere, a drone and a laser could help communities find, record and protect sacred places that have sat unnoticed for generations.
Sources
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