Aboriginal sites of Victoria form an important record of human occupation for probably more than 40,000 years. They may be identified from archaeological remains, historical and ethnographic information or continuing oral traditions and encompass places where rituals and ceremonies were performed, occupation sites where people ate, slept and carried out their day to day chores, and ephemeral evidence of people passing through the landscape, such as a discarded axe head or isolated artefact.
Victorian Aboriginal sites include shell middens, scarred trees, cooking mounds, rock art, burials, ceremonial sites and innumerable stone artefacts. These stone flakes represent the tools Aboriginal people used, such as knives, spear points, scrapers and awls, and the waste material left behind when they were made. Commonly referred to as stone artefact scatters such sites can be found on the surface or exposed by ploughing or erosion, or through careful archaeological excavation.
Types of sites
Scarred trees result from removing bark for the manufacture of shields, coolamons, shelters and other utensils can be found where appropriate species of tree of sufficient age survive. Some trees were marked with designs and symbols. A large river red gum with a canoe scar is located at Heide Gallery in Bulleen.
Scar tree from removal of bark for a shield, near Wahgunyah
There have been more than 60 rock art sites identified in the Grampians National Park which contains about 80% of the known Aboriginal rock art sites in Victoria, with a number of new discoveries after the fires of January 2006.[1] They depict humans, human hands, animal tracks and birds, while some are open to the public and are readily accessible including: Billimina (Glenisla shelter), Jananginj Njani (Camp of the Emu's Foot), Manja (Cave of Hands), Larngibunja (Cave of Fishes), Ngamadjidj (Cave of Ghosts, from the word Ngamadjidj), and Gulgurn Manja (Flat Rock).[2] Nearby Bunjil's Shelter, which illustrates Bunjil, the creator, is in the Black Range near Stawell. A painting thought to be of a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) is noted from Mt Pilot and the paintings at Mudgegonga rock shelter in north-eastern Victoria are possibly 3500 years old.
A small part of the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement
Ceremonial sites are rare, but two large stone arrangements have been found at Wurdi Youang near Mount Rothwell and Carisbrook. others have been identified from Oral tradition, although archaeological remains are no longer evident such as the Corroboree Tree at Richmond oval was a significant gathering place for the Wurundjeri people. A number of earth rings have been identified in Sunbury,[3] which, although lacking historical or ethnographic evidence, have been interpreted as ceremonial Bora rings.[4]
Mount William Quarry
Evidence of stone quarrying is rare, but the Mount William stone axe quarry[5] is one of a number of stone sources used for making tools which were traded long distances throughout central and western Victoria and into New South Wales.[6]
Only a relatively small number of burials have been identified in Victoria, most of which are associated with sand dunes along the coast or in the north west of the state. Kow Swamp is particularly significant for evidence of 13000 year old burial rituals using a headband of kangaroo incisors similar to those worn by Aboriginal people until recently, and for consistent burial practices over a long period. A burial on the banks of the Werribee river has been dated to about 7300 years ago.
Shell middens occur along most of the coastline and some lake-shores and river banks. Most of these were relatively recent (due to the mobile nature of sand) such as Seal Point and Moonlight Head in the Otway Ranges, although some like Mallacoota Inlet in eastern Gippsland have been dated to more than 2500 years ago, and Wilsons Promontory 6500 years ago.
Large earth mounds were built up by deliberate transport of soil and the remains of clay heat retainers in hearths, the collapse of seasonally abandoned turf huts and camp activities. Examples have been found on the Hopkins River flood plain in central western Victoria, and in the Nyah Forest, the oldest is dated to about 2500 years ago.[7]
Fish and eel traps were constructed on many rivers, and while most were probably of organic materials and have left little trace, some, such as at Lake Condah in western Victoria reveal complex systems of excavated channels and stone weirs, dated to 3000 years ago. Stone artefacts found near the bones of now extinct megafauna at Lancefield in central Victoria have suggested Aboriginal people were living alongside giant marsupials 26,000 years ago.
While rock shelters are often the sites of cave painting and other art, they also provide deeply stratified occupation deposits because they are protected from erosion. New Guinea II cave on the Snowy River near Buchan has deposits more than 10 000 years old along with delicate cave paintings and engravings. Rock shelters were occupied in the Cape Bridgewater area about 12,000 years ago. Cloggs Cave rock shelter near Buchan, Victoria was occupied about 18,000 years ago, where bone tools and animal remains were found. At the Keilor Archaeological Site a human hearth excavated in 1971 was radiocarbon-dated to about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia, while at Box Gully on Lake Tyrrell, emu eggs and other artefacts have been dated to 27,000 years ago.[8]
Stone artefact scatters are among the most common site types and provide evidence of tool use and manufacture. These are often extensive surface scatters and deep stratified deposits of flaked finegrained stone, of lithic flakes. Much of this material is waste flakes, discarded during the manufacture process. Specific types of artefacts such as blades, scrapers or burins may indicate what the area was used for, for example processing animal skins. Stone artefact material is usually rine grained silcrete, chert, and quartz. Hornfels is an unusual and rare material, but is highly distinctive.
The oldest archaeological site in the greater Melbourne area, and one of the most important, is at Keilor on the Maribyrnong River. A human skull discovered there in 1940 was later found to be around 13 000 years old, older than any other human remains found in Australia up to that time, and the find attracted worldwide attention. After small excavations in the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists from La Trobe University and the Victoria Archaeological Survey (VAS) began an excavation that continued for five years finding a sequence of stone tools and butchered animal bone.
Occupation patterns
Whilst most evidence of Aboriginal settlement is derived from camp sites where fireplaces, remains of stone tool making and sometimes structures such as mounds and huts can be found, and these sites are almost always located close to reliable water sources, the distribution of Aboriginal archaeological sites demonstrates occupation of all the climatic zones in Victoria, even during the extreme global climatic conditions at the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum when temperatures were colder, vast amounts of surface water were frozen in glaciers and sea levels were lower. Around 18,000 BP sea levels were about 65 metres below present day levels,[11] while archaeological evidence has shown that people were present in south-eastern Australia throughout all of the climatic changes of at least the last 30,000 years ranging from the deep gorges and highlands of East Gippsland such as at Clogg's Cave,[12] and New Guinea II cave,[13] the riverine plains at Keilor, the inland plains and swamps such as Kow Swamp, and the eastern ranges at the Grampians.
The Grampians National Park commonly referred to as the Grampians, is a national park located in the Grampians region of Victoria, Australia. The Jardwadjali name for the mountain range itself is Gariwerd.
Australian archaeology is a large sub-field in the discipline of archaeology. Archaeology in Australia takes four main forms: Aboriginal archaeology, historical archaeology, maritime archaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary past. Bridging these sub-disciplines is the important concept of cultural heritage management, which encompasses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sites, historical sites, and maritime sites.
Sydney rock engravings, or Sydney rock art, are a form of Australian Aboriginal rock art in the sandstone around Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that consist of carefully drawn images of people, animals, or symbols. Many thousands of such engravings are known to exist in the Sydney region, although the locations of most are not publicised to prevent damage by vandalism, and to retain their sanctity, as they are still regarded as sacred sites by Indigenous Australians. There are two art environments in Sydney Basin, rock shelters and engraving sites.
Aboriginal stone arrangements are a form of rock art constructed by Aboriginal Australians. Typically, they consist of stones, each of which may be about 30 centimetres (12 in) in size, laid out in a pattern extending over several metres or tens of metres. Notable examples have been made by many different Australian Aboriginal cultures, and in many cases are thought to be associated with spiritual ceremonies.
Aboriginal Victorians, the Aboriginal Australians of Victoria, Australia, occupied the land for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement. Aboriginal people have lived a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering and associated activities for at least 40,000 years.
Wurdi Youang is the name attributed to an Aboriginal stone arrangement located off the Little River – Ripley Road at Mount Rothwell, near Little River, Victoria in Australia. The site was acquired by the Indigenous Land Corporation on 14 January 2000 and transferred to the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative on 17 August 2006.
The Sunbury Earth Rings are prehistoric Aboriginal sites located on the hills to the west of Jacksons Creek near Sunbury, Victoria, Australia.
The Kow Swamp archaeological site comprises a series of late Pleistocene burials within the lunette of the eastern rim of a former lake known as Kow Swamp. The site is 10 kilometres (6 mi) south-east of Cohuna in the central Murray River valley, in northern Victoria, at 35.953553°S 144.318123°E. The site is significant for archaeological excavations by Alan Thorne between 1968 and 1972 which recovered the partial skeletal remains of more than 22 individuals.
The Keilor archaeological site was among the first places to demonstrate the antiquity of Aboriginal occupation of Australia when a cranium, unearthed in 1940, was found to be nearly 15,000 years old. Subsequent investigations of Pleistocene alluvial terraces revealed hearths about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia. Remains of megafauna suggest a possible association with Aboriginal hunting.
The Mount William stone axe quarry is an Aboriginal Australian archaeological site in Central Victoria, Australia. It is located 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) northeast of Lancefield, off Powells Track, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Romsey and 78 kilometres (48 mi) from Melbourne. Known as Wil-im-ee moor-ring, meaning "axe place" in the Woiwurrung language, the greenstone quarry was an important source of raw material for the manufacture of greenstone ground-edge axes, which were traded over a wide area of south-east Australia.
The Bend Road archaeological site is an open site in Melbourne, Australia. It was discovered during survey and archaeological testing for the proposed Scoresby Freeway, which became the EastLink Freeway. The site is located in two separate areas on either side of Bend Road, Dandenong South where the freeway now intersects the former road, and originally covered about 12 hectares.
The Carisbrook stone arrangement is a well-preserved Aboriginal stone arrangement in Victoria, Australia. It measures 60 by 5 metres and is one of only four stone arrangements in the state and the only one of a boomerang design. It is located about 5 km south-east of the town of Carisbrook, on the banks of Tullaroop Creek.
The Box Gully archaeological site is an Aboriginal archaeological site on the shore of saline Lake Tyrrell, in the Mallee region of northern Victoria, Australia. The site consists of the remains of a small hunting camp, which has produced radiocarbon dates of between 26,600 and 32,000 years BP, making Box Gully one of the earliest known occupied sites of the region and the first documentation of pre-30,000 calBP Aboriginal occupation of the extensive area between the Murray River and the Tasmanian highlands.
The Mudgegonga rock shelter is a large rock overhang which contains over 400 Aboriginal wall paintings and stencils and evidence of prehistoric Aboriginal occupation. The site is located in north eastern Victoria near the town of Mudgegonga, and is associated with rich artefact deposits that shows occupation of the region by 3,500 years ago and may have been used several thousand years before this. It has been described as one of the richest rock art sites in Victoria.
New Guinea II is a limestone cave and rockshelter on the Snowy River at the end of New Guinea Track, near Buchan, Victoria. The cave was within the country of the Krowathunkooloong clan of the Gunaikurnai nation. The deep cave system has an overhanging cliff that creates a rock shelter at the entrance facing the river. Excavations in the 1980s carried out by archaeologist Paul Ossa and a team from La Trobe University found stone artefacts, and other signs of occupation that were dated to almost 20,000 BP.
Cloggs Cave is a limestone cave and rockshelter with significant Aboriginal archaeological deposits, located on a cliff along the Snowy River gorge near the town of Buchan, Victoria.
Sandor (Alexander) Gallus was a Melbourne archaeologist, most famous for his investigations of Pleistocene Aboriginal occupation at Koonalda Cave in South Australia and the Dry Creek archaeological site in Keilor, Australia, which helped demonstrate the great antiquity of Aboriginal occupation of Australia.
Josephine Mary Flood, is an English-born Australian archaeologist, mountaineer, and author.
Kutikina Cave is a rock shelter located on the Franklin River in the South West Wilderness, a World Heritage Area in the Australian state of Tasmania.
The Green gully archaeological site is an Aboriginal archaeological site in Keilor, Victoria, Australia. The site was discovered during soil quarrying in the 1960s, when artefacts and a burial were uncovered in the alluvial terraces in the Maryibyrnong Valley.
↑ Coutts, P.J.F. & Miller, R (1977). The Mt. William archaeological area. Melbourne: Victorian Archaeological Survey, Government Printer
↑ Peter Coutts and Jane Wesson, Victoria Archaeological Survey Summer Schools in Archaeology: An Evaluation, Australian Archaeology No. 11 (Dec., 1980), pp. 19–127
↑ Josephine Flood, Pleistocene Human Occupation and Extinct Fauna in Cloggs Cave, Buchan, South-east Australia Nature 246, 303 (30 November 1973); doi:10.1038/246303a0, Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Box 4, PO, Canberra, ACT 2600
↑ John Mulvaney & Johan Kamminga, Prehistory of Australia, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999
↑ Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, J. B. Publishing, 2004
↑ 'New Guinea II Cave: a Pleistocene site on the Snowy River, Victoria' by Paul Ossa | Papers by Paul co-authored with Brendan Marshal & Cathie Webb, Archaeology in Oceania (1995) Volume: 30, Issue: 1, Pages: 22–35.
Horton, D. 1994. The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Studies Press. (As well as short discussions on archaeological sites and materials this volume also has a useful time line in the Appendix.)
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