While searching for suitable pastoral land in the then remote Roe River area in 1891, pastoralist Joseph Bradshaw documented an unusual type of rock art on a sandstone escarpment. Bradshaw recognised that this style of painting was unique when compared to the Wandjina style. In a subsequent address to the Victorian branch of the Royal Geographical Society, he commented on the fine detail, the colours, such as brown, yellow and pale blue, and he compared it aesthetically to that of Ancient Egypt. American archaeologist Daniel Sutherland Davidson briefly commented on the figures while undertaking a survey of Australian rock art that he would publish in 1936. Davidson noted that Bradshaw's encounter with this art was brief and lacked any Aboriginal interpretations; furthermore, as Bradshaw's sketches of the art were at this time the only visual evidence, Davidson argued that they could be inaccurate and possibly drawn from a Eurocentric bias. The figures and their existence as an artistic tradition was questioned; articles and books on these works were not published until the 1950s. The rediscovery of the original mural after more than a century has shown that Bradshaw had a remarkable gift for reproduction without photography, and that Davidson's criticisms were unfounded in the absence of the original. With the growth of anthropological interest in Peninsula region, research in the coastal area brought with it an awareness of Aboriginal art and culture. However, attention to the Gwion Gwion art was sporadic. Several researchers who encountered the Gwion-type of paintings during expeditions to the region were members of the 1938 Frobenius Institute expedition. Agnes Schultz noted that unlike with Wandjina art, Aboriginal people showed little interest in the Gwion Gwion paintings, although they recognised them as depictions of bush spirits or D'imi. When pressed, the expedition's Aboriginal guide explained their creation: Anthropologist Robert Layton notes that researchers such as Ian Crawford, who worked in the region in 1969, and Patricia Vinnicombe, who worked in the region in the 1980s, were both told similar creation stories regarding the Gwion-type art. Since 1980, more systematic work has been done in an effort to identify more Gwion Gwion rock art sites in the Kimberley. Research The fossil record of climate and vegetation at the last glacial maximum is sparse, but still clear enough to provide an overview. When the Kimberley region was first occupied circa 40,000 years ago, the region consisted of open tropical