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Mungo Tools

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Tools of the trade

(Source: notice board at Lake Mungo)

As the interior of Australia gradually dried up between 30 000 - 50 0000 years ago, the people of Mungo had to increasingly depend on hunting methods other than fishing to survive. They had already developed a variety of stone and wooden tools - examples of which are displayed here.Fire was also to become one of the Aborigenes� most useful hunting and gathering methods.

Along the western edge of the lake, silcrete ridges provided the raw material for stone tool production. Silcrete was an important source of stone in an area where few rocky outcrops existed. This stone material was quarried from its source then taken to campsites and made into a variety of multi-functional tools. The remains of some of these 'workshops' can still be seen around Mungo today.

As well as locally obtained material, stone of high quality had been traded into the Willandra region. Many imported stone implements such as axe heads crafted from green stone from Victoria have been found throughout the lakes area. Large slabs of sandstone were also carried into the area to be used for the important task of grinding and processing plant foodstuffs.

Razor sharp stone flakes and tools were useful for many day to day activites including cutting, scraping, and shaping with other wooden tools. Stone and wood were not the only form of tool technology used - fire held many uses for Aboriginal people. It was used for warmth, light, cooking, tool making, communicating and flusdhing out animals. Its use as a hunting strategy during 'burn offs' promoted new growth - enticing a flurry of wildlife activity.

The remains of tool making activities represent the main material left by the early cultures that once thrived there. Many other items of the past have not survived the thousands of years that separate us today.The durability of stone artefacts has ensured that a record of the past has remained. They have provided clues to understanding other aspects of an ancient culture.

More than one way to catch a fish

Lake Mungo has the oldest record in the world for people cooking and eating freshwater fish. Until about 22 000 years ago the Willandra area contained a vast system of freshwater lakes where Aboriginal people lived - fishing for Golden Perch and Murray Cod and collecting freshwater mussels, yabbies,bird eggs, animals and bush tucker.

Information on how Aborigines fished has been handed down through traditional kknowledge to contemporary Aboriginal people. European explorers also observed traditional fishing methods of the people who lived near the Murray and Darling Rivers.

Over thousands of years Aboriginal people developed efficient ways of catching fish. Below are examples of fishing methods used throughout the Australian continent.

Drugged - crushed toxic leaves and seeds were thrown into the water. This produced a toxin which stunned the fish.

Trapped - young trees were used to create a weir in a creek leaving an opening for a net. Large stone fish-trap complexes were also used to dam up small streams.

Netted - plant fibres were woven into nets which could be staked out to catch passing fish.

Plucked - in times of low water levels fish would become trapped in shallow isolated pools.These fish could be easily speared or simply plucked out of the water.

Hooked - line fishing existed in some areas of Australia using fish hooks made from shell.

Gathered - while some of the people were off hunting others collected mussels and yabbies.

The raw material for most of the Lake Mungo toolkit is silcrete.

Silcretes are very hard layers of silica-enriched materials formed beneath the surface in soils, unconsolidated sediments, and permeable rocks. These materials range from silica-cemented sand and gravel to an amorphous matrix enriched with small silica particles. There is little agreement as to their classification and origin. A minimum silica (SiO 2) content of 85 percent by weight has been proposed by Summerfield (1983) to distinguish silcretes from other duricrusts.

Although not restricted to arid regions, silcrete zones are found in many deserts, and they are most extensive and prominent topographic features in Australian deserts. Silcrete tends to form roughly horizontal, highly resistant layers generally less than 5 m thick. When exposed by erosion, silcrete forms highly resistant cap rocks of scarps ("breakaways" in Australia). These cap rocks resemble quartzite.

Many talus slopes and gravel plains in areas of exposed silcrete consist of silcrete fragments eroded from the cap rock. Buried silcrete layers thicker than 3 m are rare, and they are generally not laterally continuous over large areas.

Reference: Summerfield, M.A. 1983. Silcrete. In Chemical sediments and geomorphology, edited by A.S. Goudie and K. Pye. San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 59-92.

Display: Lake Mungo NPWS interpretation centre

Text: The US Army Corps of Engineers Topographic Engineering Centre, at
http://www.tec.army.mil/research/products/desert_guide/lsmsheet/lssilc.htm

Photo: Don Hitchcock

These are long blades crafted from silcrete

Although silcrete is not an ideal material for blades, having too much granularity, the tools made by the Lake Mungo people are beautifully and elegantly made, with a minimum of blows in an apparently effortless style.

Display: Lake Mungo NPWS interpretation centre

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Burin of silcrete from Lake Mungo, about 7 cm across.

All silcrete on the "Walls of China" was carried there by aborigines from the western side of the lake. There is no silcrete available on the eastern side of Lake Mungo.

This tool would originally have had a sharp and narrow point for making holes in leather, which has broken off, and the tool was then thrown away.

The tools are elegantly made, with the minimum of flakes being removed, and no evidence of retouching. They have been made by master craftsmen with total control of the material.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Stone core and a whelk shell from the lake.

I can imagine the craftsman making tools from the core, and sucking the meat from the shell as he worked.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Probably a scraper, used in the initial preparation of hides by scraping off the fat on the inside of the skin. This is a beautiful piece of work, done with complete mastery of the admittedly poor material.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Probably a knife or a wide scraper, about 7 cm across.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

A core and what looks like burnt clay or termite mound from an ancient hearth.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Burin with the point broken off. Note the oxidation bands still showing from the original pebble from which the tool was made, and the burnt clay from the hearth near which it was laid down.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

The burin above in situ, with apparently burnt objects (charcoal?) and burnt clay.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Hearth in situ near the edge of the lake.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Midden of shells collected from the time when Lake Mungo was full of water. They look like they could have been opened and eaten just a few years ago.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Silcrete tool core in situ poking out from a vertical cut in the sediments. The scarcity of such objects compared with the relative abundance of tools and cores lying on the surface illustrates the effectiveness of the winnowing process of rain and wind in exposing the artefacts.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Silcrete core.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Silcrete blade.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Tools winnowed to the surface by wind and water.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Burin and one of the ubiquitous caterpillars!

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Shell from a midden looking as though it is only a year or two old - but it is tens of thousands of years since the lake had enough water to provide habitat for shells of this kind.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Tool, possibly a scraper.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Tool.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

The burnt clay remains of a hearth.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

A tool left behind in a hearth.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Aborigines were quick to make use of better materials as they became available. After white contact, when glass bottles became available, but before steel knives were common, they made beautiful objects such as these knives from the superior material. Glass bottle bases provide a defect-free material which gives the skilled user complete control.

Display: Lake Mungo NPWS interpretation centre

Photo: Don Hitchcock

A well made quartzite blade.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Tools exposed on a crusted surface.
Photo: Don Hitchcock

Multicoloured core.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Tetragon shaped tool, or part of one.

Photo: Don Hitchcock

Silcrete pebble such as would have been used to make the tools.
Photo: Don Hitchcock

Large silcrete pebble.
Photo: Don Hitchcock

Field of silcrete pebbles.
Photo: Don Hitchcock

This photo shows a coolamon, or container, with a grinding stone. The coolamon contains seeds in this display.

The muller referred to on the label is the upper, hand-held grindstone, out of frame in this photo.

In the semi-arid to arid regions of Australia, seed-foods were a major food staple. Aboriginal women made flour from a range of different plant seeds, including those of native grasses, some trees, shrubs, succulents and even ferns. The flour made from these seeds was an extremely nutritious high-energy food that was of vital importance in regions where other more easily processed plant foods were not readily available.

Aboriginal women developed an intricate method of processing the seeds they gathered. Collected material was placed in a coolamon (elongated wooden dish) and skilfully rocked and flicked to separate material of different densities (such as leaves, twigs and sand) so the seeds were easily extracted. Seeds were then winnowed by being rubbed together in handfuls and dropped a short height over the coolamon to allow the fine outer husks to blow away. The seeds were then ground into a meal or flour using a millstone (lower grindstone) and muller (hand-held upper stone) set.

Text: From the Australian Museum website,
http://www.amonline.net.au/snapshots/arid/bakers.htm

Display: Lake Mungo NPWS interpretation centre

Photo: Don Hitchcock

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This page last modified Friday 25 January 2008

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Hitchcock Lane Armidale NSW 2350 Australia
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