in Kimberley rock art at the University of Western Australia Peter Veth criticized the research paper for claiming that simultaneous changes in climate patterns and art styles indicates the collapse of a culture. Veth suggested that a climate change coinciding with the change from Gwion Gwion to Wandjina art is coincidence, pointing out that the archaeology of the Kimberley does not show a break in occupation, and that stylistic changes in Aboriginal art have occurred elsewhere in Australia. Additionally, the migration of a new ethnic group into the area is unsupported by the linguistics. Controversies Research concerning Gwion Gwion art is controversial and little consensus has been reached. Debate has primarily concerned Walsh's interpretations regarding the origins, dating and ethnicity of the Gwion Gwion artists, and his rejection of Aboriginal people as being their descendants. The implications of his interpretations generated considerable criticism beginning in the mid-1990s due to its continuing potential to undermine native title claims in the Kimberley. The ongoing disagreements regarding the age of the art and debate about whether it was created by non-Indigenous people makes Gwion Gwion rock art one of Australian archaeology's most contentious topics. Exotic or local artists According to Walsh, Gwion Gwion art was associated with a period he called the Erudite Epoch, a time before Aboriginal people populated Australia. He suggested that the art may be the product of an ethnic group who had likely arrived in Australia from Indonesia, only to be displaced by the ancestors of present-day Aboriginal people. Walsh based this interpretation on the sophistication of Gwion Gwion art when compared to other art in the Kimberley region, such as the much later Wandjina styles. Media coverage has at times emphasised his claims of mysterious races. Pettigrew suggests that the Gwion Gwion paintings depict people with 'peppercorn curls' and small stature that characterise San groups; he speculates that African people travelled, shortly after the Toba eruption some 70,000 years ago, by reed boat across the Indian Ocean, provisioning themselves with the fruit of the baobab tree. The Australian archaeological community has generally not accepted such claims and believes that Gwion Gwion are indigenous works. For example, Dr Andrée Rosenfeld argued that the aesthetics of the art did not support claims for a non-Aboriginal origin when comparison is made to the aesthetic value of contemporary Aboriginal art. The Australian Archaeological Association in a press release stated, "No archaeological evidence