Tools and implements reflect the geographical location of different Aboriginal groups. For example, coastal tribes used fishbone to tip their weapons, whereas desert tribes used stone tips. While tools varied by group and location, Aboriginal people all had knives, scrapers, axe-heads, spears, various vessels for eating and drinking, and digging sticks.
Aboriginal people achieved two world firsts with stone technology. They were the first to introduce ground edges on cutting tools and to grind seed. They used stone tools for many things including: to make other tools, to get and prepare food, to chop wood, and to prepare animal skins.
After European discovery and English colonisation, Aboriginal people quickly realised the advantages of incorporating metal, glass and ceramics. They were easier to work with, gave a very sharp edge, and needed less resharpening. Their traditional tools and implements are no longer used but many of the sites where they were created - axe sharpening grooves by creeks and rivers and trees where the bark has been removed to create a bark canoe, for example, still remain.
Axe-grinding grooves
 Axe-grinding grooves are oval-shaped indentations in sandstone outcrops. Aboriginal people made the grooves when they shaped and sharpened stone axes by grinding them against the sandstone. Flat, low outcrops of fine-grained sandstone were used to give stone axe heads a sharp cutting edge. Sometimes, Aboriginal people also carried small pieces of sandstone for sharpening axes, and these portable pieces were often gouged on more than one surface. Other Aboriginal artefacts are sometimes found near axe-grinding grooves.
Axe-grinding grooves are almost always found along the edges of rivers, creeks, lakes and swamps, or near dry or drained water bodies. Aboriginal people used axe-grinding grooves to finish partly made axes or sharpen axes that were worn or chipped. Aboriginal people chipped rocks into a basic axe shape at stone quarries and then sharpened them by rubbing the edges over sandstone. This rubbing action left grooves in the outcrop surface. Aboriginal people often sprinkled water on the sandstone to make it more abrasive and to reduce dust. This is why the grooves are usually found on outcrops close to water.
Where to find axe grinding grooves: There are too many examples of Axe-grinding grooves around Australia to list here. Of all Australia's capital cities, few have as many examples as Sydney. Axe grinding grooves can be found on rocks beside a creek at Glades Bay Native Gardens, Gladesville. Axe grinding grooves and rock carvings of footprints, known as mundoes (pronounced mun-doe-eez), can be seen on the rocks below Scenic Drive, Dobroyd Head. Tool sharpening grooves have been found near the engravings site located 400m south of the end of Bantry Bay Road, .
Axe grinding grooves are featured on the Gulgadya Muru Grass Tree Self Guided Walking Track around Manly Dam, Manly Vale. A wombat, a sea creature and axe grinding grooves are carved into rock at the headwaters of Carters Creek in Lane Cove National Park.
Smaller engravings, six shell middens, two rock shelters and axe grinding grooves are located near the waterline towards the eastern and western tips of the headland of Balls Head. Alongside the Gadyan Track of Berry Island Reserve, Wollstonecraft, are numerous middens and a carving of a giant sea creature, a waterhole and axe grinding grooves.
|
 Canoe Trees
Canoe trees are usually tall gum trees from which the local Aborigines cut a large slab of bark which they shaped into a crude bark canoe. As expected, scarred trees from which bark has been cut to create canoes, occur close to large bodies of water such as rivers and lakes.
As the practice of creating bark canoes has not taken place for well over a century, many such trees have died or have been removed, and of the few old scarred trees that remain, some have healed over, but evidence of the scarring remains. Time is their enemy, so numbers are declining as the years go by. In the Aboriginal Artefacts Department of all major Australian museums, however, there are many preserved examples of intact aboriginal 'bark canoes' on display.
Note: in some areas of Australia, the bark of trees was also extracted to create shields.
Where to find canoe trees: examples of canoe trees can be found at various locations within the Murray/Darling Basin. There are numerous, well sign-posted trees beside the Murray River between Mannum SA and Wentworth NSW. The Currency Creek Canoe tree is on the right hand side of the road as you drive from Goolwa to Strathalbyn.
In Victoria, there are scarred trees, mounds, stone artefact scatters and middens are found in Lower Goulburn National Park, between Shepparton and Echuca.
There are a number of scarred trees around Canberra: more details.
Around Sydney, there are a number of scarred trees in Royal National Park and Heathcote National Park, the easist to find being beside the Bullawaring Track between Kingfisher Pool and Myuna Pools. There are a significant number of scarred trees within the Cubbitch Barta National Estate Area, Old Illawarra Rd, Holsworthy. The remnants of an Aboriginal scarred tree stands in Parramatta Park, Parramatta. There are two scarred trees, along with a ceremonial stone arrangement, 4 sets of axe grinding grooves, 3 rock shelters and an open air campsite at Devil's Rock, Maroota.
The grave of explorer Thomas Mitchell’s Aboriginal guide, Yaranigh, lies 2km out of the NSW town of Molong. Yaranigh, who died in 1850, was buried according to tribal rites and his grave is marked by four scarred trees and a headstone whose epitaph pays tribute to his courage and fidelity.
An ancient forest redgum near Broulee, NSW (on the corner of George Bass Drive and Broulee Road) carries an oval-shaped scar, where an enormous sheet of bark was removed to make a canoe.
In Queensland, there are a number of scarred trees in Springbrook National Park.
|
