Because stone artefacts are found in many different places, and are usually small, they can be difficult to protect. They are sometimes collected by people who do not understand the importance of leaving Aboriginal cultural materials where they are found. Erosion and weathering and activities such as ditch digging and ploughing can disturb flaked stone artefacts. They can also be broken when trampled by animals such as cows, or when run over by vehicles.
Aboriginal Victoria records flaked stone artefacts so that we will have a permanent photographic and written record of this important part of the heritage of all Australians. Some particularly good examples of places containing flaked stone artefacts may require active conservation so that they can be preserved for future generations. All Aboriginal cultural places in Victoria are protected by law.
Aboriginal artefacts are also protected. It is against the law to disturb or destroy an Aboriginal place. Artefacts should not be removed from site. Please help to preserve Aboriginal cultural places by reporting their presence to First Peoples - State Relations.
Skip to main content. Home Heritage Aboriginal places and objects Aboriginal flaked stone tools. Strips of bark were removed from the tree using an axe. The outer bark was scraped away and the remaining strips of soft moist inner bark were hand rolled on the thigh to form the string. Numbers of these strands could be twisted together to produce a thicker string if desired. String was used for body decoration, ties of various sorts, and could be woven into taps for fish and birds as an alternative to the lawyercanes.
Grinding stones and graters were used for food preparation, particularly for grinding or grating cooked poisonous seeds before the period of leaching in running water which was necessary to remove the poison before they could be eaten.
Snail shell parers were also used for this purpose, especially with ganyjuu. See Food Processing Grinding stones were also used to powder the variously coloured ochres which were used for painting traditional patterns on shields and other wooden artefacts.
More information on the tools and weapons of the North Queensland rainforest Aborigines can be found in Aboriginal Tools of the Rainforest by the Aboriginal people of Jumbun, compiled and photographed by Helen Pedley. On completion the spear is usually around centimetres 9 feet long. A spear thrower is also commonly known as a Woomera or Miru. The spear thrower is usually made from mulga wood and has a multi-function purpose.
It is however primarily designed to launch a spear. The thrower grips the end covered with spinifex resin and places the end of the spear into the small peg on the end of the woomera. The spear can then be launched with substantial power at an enemy or prey. Inserted in the spinifex resin of the handle of many spear throwers is a very sharp piece of quartz rock. This is used for cutting, shaping or sharpening. It has been said that they usually couldn't be pulled out, needing to be pushed right through the body, which no doubt caused even more damage.
The death spears from museum collections have up to 40 barbs attached to grooves in the spear shaft with gum. These barbs are unbacked quartz flakes with no secondary working. Evidence from sites such as Sassafras and Currarong indicates that backed blades gradually disappeared about years ago, to be replaced increasingly by quartz flakes. It is thought that in earlier times backed blades were used as barbs on death spears, evidence for which is the large numbers of backed blades that have been found, the large numbers suggesting they were used for something other than spear points, with so many being used on death spears this could account for the high numbers found.
Spear thrower - woomera or atlatl The antiquity of the spear thrower in Australia was pushed back to at least 40, BP some have dates of 60, BP , making it possibly the oldest known use of a spear thrower in the world, when it was discovered that Mungo Man, Lake Mungo 3 WLH 3 , had severe osteoarthritis of the right elbow, spear thrower elbow, a sure sign that the gracile Skelton was indeed a man, right handed, and used a spear thrower for a number of years.
Points Stone points are usually assumed to have been used hafted to the ends of spears. They have been found trimmed on one side unifacial or both sides bifacial. Neither appears to predate the other, both have been found in the same level at sites such as the Yarar Rockshelter in the Northern Territory.
At the Yarar site, the majority of broken points were butts, broken tips being a minority. It appears the rock shelter was a place where spears with broken points were rehafted. Both types of points, which are believed to have been spear points, had similar dimensions of about 3. They are of a size that could be used on arrows, but no evidence of arrows have been found in Australia. At the time of the European colonisation of Australia spears were being used in northwestern Australia that had stone tips.
In the Kimberleys, these spear points ranged in size from 3 to more than 10 cm long. Some spears from museums have 3 cm long bifacial points of which 2 cm of point protrudes from the hafting gum. It is assumed the use of very small points meant that the point would be less likely to break on impact than longer points. The spear points from the Kimberleys are characterised by symmetrical, pressure-flaked bifacial points. These points may have been regarded more as ritual or status objects, as they were traded along the trade routes to distant tribes.
After the overland telegraph was established the porcelain insulators became a sort after material for the construction of these points, along with glass.
These high quality points were being used by the desert tribes km away in circumcision rituals.
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