CANBERRA, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- A team of researchers and Indigenous Australians are facing a race against time to document ancient carvings in the bark of dying boab trees.
In a study published on Wednesday, the team from Australian National University (ANU), the University of Canberra and the University of Western Australia detailed their work over the last two years to document the art before it is lost.
Working with five Indigenous Australians, the researchers found 12 boab trees with carvings dating back several hundreds years.
Sue O'Connor, leader of the project from the ANU School of Culture, History and Language, said it was becoming urgent to preserve the carvings before the trees die.
Found mostly in the Kimberley region of Western Australia (WA) and the Northern Territory (NT), the boab is the only baobab found in Australia.
"Unlike most Australian trees, the inner wood of boabs is soft and fibrous and when the trees die, they just collapse," O'Connor said in a media release.
"Sadly, after lasting centuries if not millennia, this incredible artwork, which is equally as significant as the rock art Indigenous Australians are famous for, is now in danger of being lost."
Carvings found by the team in the Tanami Desert, which straddles the border between the WA and the NT, tell the story of the King Brown Snake Dreaming.
Brenda Garstone, an Indigenous member of the project, said it was important the stories are kept for future generations.
"We are in a race against time to document this invaluable cultural heritage."
Carvings on boab trees were first found in the 1980s by archaeologist Darrell Lewis.
Evidence suggests the trees became widely dispersed through the Kimberley and Tanami because First Nations people carried their seeds as a food source.
O'Connor said the boabs have never been successfully dated, meaning there is no way of knowing how much longer they will survive.
"It is vital we obtain some direct ages for these remarkable Australian trees, which help tell the story of First Nations (Indigenous) Australians and are the source of a rich cultural heritage," she said.
"There are hundreds more boabs visible on Google Earth, which we didn't manage to get to on this trip. They remain to be checked for carvings on our next Tanami adventure. We hope that our research will bring the art in the bark of these remarkable trees to many more Australians so that they can be appreciated for generations to come." ■