[4][5] Stone artefacts including several weathered flakes and fragments made of igneous and metamorphic rocks and chert were collected from Barrow Island in the 1960s.

Navigators had noted its existence since the early 17th century, and Nicholas Baudin sighted it in 1803, mistakenly believing it to be part of mainland Australia.

[6] Phillip Parker King named the island in 1816 after Sir John Barrow, a Secretary of the Admiralty and founder of the Royal Geographical Society.

The island was used as a slave trading centre for Aboriginal Australians during the 1870s by Captain William Cadell until he was arrested and removed from the colony in 1876.

[7] Guano, seabirds or bats' excrement that is a highly effective fertilizer, was found on the island and mining began in 1883.

[11] The island is known for its diversity of mammalian fauna, including several species now extinct or greatly reduced on mainland Australia.

[12] The island is also home to 43 species of terrestrial reptiles including a variety of dragons, legless lizards, geckos, skinks, snakes and monitors.

Hydrogen sulphide produced by the "Barrow fault" may sustain this diverse community through chemoautotrophic energy production.

Corporate and state government cooperation on programs has produced studies into the little-known subterranean fauna of the island.

The World Meteorological Organization established Barrow Island as the location of the highest non-tornadic wind gust ever recorded, at 408 km/h (254 mph).