"Earlier this year it was discovered that the cave had been unlawfully accessed and a section of the delicate finger flutings had been vandalized, with damage scratched across them into the side of the cave," a government spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.Koonalda Cave is of significant importance to the Mirning People, and its tens of thousands of years of history show some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation in that part of the country," the spokesperson said.The vandals were not deterred by fences at the caves, so the South Australia state government is now considering installing security cameras and has been consulting traditional owners "over recent months" on how to better protect the site, the spokesperson added.However, Bunna Lawrie, a senior Mirning elder and the custodian of Koonalda, said he hadn't heard about the vandalism until local media reported it this week."We have opposed opening our sacred place, as this would breach the protocols that have protected Koonalda for so long."