Did anybody else hear the documentry on radio national last thursday discussing European contact with the Aboriganals in the Gulf of Carpenteria? They were reading from a document about Abel Tasmans contact with them in 1640? stating they were armed with Spears, bows and arrows. It is accepted that the aboriginal people never used the bow as a hunting weapon, but I have found more than one reference to them having bows, another referred to aboriganal children on the cape using bows in play.
Rock art in north west WA has been shown depicting european contact. Now if someone could find something similar to European and African rock art depicting the bow that would be something.
I have seen many knapped heads, similar to African and North American heads found in Australia that could be Arrow heads, but have also seen Artifacts (spears and woomeras) with Knapped stone attached of a similar size. Most of the stone heads have come from Northern Australia but some have been discovered in Central Victoria.
Anybody heard of any other references to the use of the bow by Aboriginal people?

Mike

I have heard of aborigionals using bows and arrows around the Gulf and Cape York myself. They must have been in contact with people who used bows and arrows up that way long before white people came to this country. I think the spear was a superior weapon to the bow. I read an aborigionals account of a good war spear, it was intended to split his enemies shield and leave him defenceless, I think an arrow of that time would have had a hard job splitting a hardwood shield...Glenn...

from what i have work out after asking around for the last 2yrs and reading books on the area while i've been here, is that the aboriginals did not. but that some of the tribes from the islands at time came too and even lived on the mainland for periods. having said this i have also heard that some of the tribes towards the tip of cape york comprised of a lot of islanders and islander blood, and that they had frequent contact with the islanders. perhaps they trades bows or took them from warriors after battle.

http://www.aboriginalartprints.com.au/p ... oglebot(at)googlebot.com&artist_id=102&exhibition_id=2

Jape,


it would seem this is about islanders.

Yes, Thursday Island, and answered the original post as a reference to Aboriginal people using a bow and arrow, some in the Gulf area, obviously mainland and islander peoples were constantly in contact up there, whether peacefully or otherwise. Thus I am not surprised at all they used bows.

I would have expected contact between the islanders and even PNG to have bought Northern mainland peoples into contact with the bow, explains some of the evidence found in the north of Australia.
Most arrow heads I have seen from these areas though are of timber or bamboo. Can anyone explain stone heads, is there evidence of stone being used elsewhere?
Cheers,
Mike

It's known that the Macassans had visited Northern Australia for hundreds of years before White contact.
It's possible they introduced bows, though I don't know enough about them to give any positive answers.
It's also possible Aboriginal Australians adopted, and then discarded the bow. Much like the Chinese abandoned guns and reverted back to the use of bows.

There was the remains of a Macassan dwelling found up in northern Australia, what was left of some of the timber used in the construction only grows on Macassar and it is believed the dwelling was constructed 500 years ago...Glenn...

Glenn, it is also believed that Macassans are responsible for bringing pigs to the top end.

Thanks to them we have that a blessing or a curse

i am of the opinion the aboriginals did not use a bow. that is if you distinguish between aboriginal and islander, and allow for the fact that islanders lived on the mainland from time to time.

however i would love to be proven wrong.

Tom, I wouldn't doubt that at all about the pigs and the Macassans. It seems reasonable that the Macassans would have established breeding populations of pigs as a food source for them, just as sailors released pigs, goats and chickens on islands up the Queensland coast...Glenn...

Definitely Glenn.

As I said, there is evidence (not sure what it is, I can't remember) that Aboriginal Australians may have adopted and then abandoned the bow before European settlement.
Reasons may have been that the bow was unsuitable for their needs, and that they would prefer to maintain using traditional weapons, rather than the introduced bow (if it was, in fact introduced by the Macassans or other visitors).

From "Archaeology of the Dreamtime" by Josephine Flood... a good book if you're interested in that sort of stuff.



The current consensus view amongst archaelogists seems to be that with the adoption of backed blade technology that filtered in from the northwest in combination with asymmetric point technology coming in from the north resulting in the creation of the death spear <stone point in combination with MANY barbs made of small backed blades> about 4000-5000 years ago, there was never any need to switch to bows as it was an inferior technology for the task of hunting large macropods.



Mick.

I remember reading once that aborigionals had heavy war spears and lighter hunting spears. The war spears were used to slpit an enemies shield to leave him defenceless, so from that point alone they wouldn't of had a use for bows and arrows...Glenn...

I had always thought they used the woomera. Which was similar to an atlatl in the fact that it helped launch the spear further than the arm could. It also acted as a shield and had a point of the end as a tool or close quarter fighting. I have personally seen a woomera in action and the aboriginal elder who through it looked as if he hardly tried and it atleast went 80-100 meters.

I always thought the wommera was a weapon as well as to launch spears, I would think that's what made their spears so superior...Glenn...

It definitely did increase the distance and accuracy of the spears and believe me its not easy. It must take them years to become as good as they were. Start them young i suppose.

The woomera or spear-thrower seems to have been invented independently in Australia sometime during the Holocene<after the ice age> period. There is NO archaeological evidence to suggest the presence in Australia of the woomera during the Pleistocene <ice age>. It appears in the archaeological record AFTER the land bridge north was flooded and this is why they think it was invented within Australia. As noted above woomeras and spears were probably Australias first export industry.

I love this stuff. I have no formal qualifications but I have studied it at University inside other degrees.

Since I moved back to my childhood home a few years ago I have gotten involved with the local town museum and completely reclassified their substantial collection of stone tools. Almost everything around here <southern Riverina on the Murrumbidgee> is a product of the large changes in Aboriginal stone tool technology that appeared a few thousand years ago. Lots of "small tool" technology, but if you are very lucky you can still see "large core and scraper" technology from the ice ages as well. Lake Mungo is only a few hour drive west of me and the old technology is very apparent when you head out there. There are 'scrapers' knocked of 'horsehoof' cores all over the place. Very cool IMHO!

My wife's cousin has a largeish <12,000 acres> property north of here. His dad was always picking up odd bits of stone from the property and every door in their house has a greenstone hand axe as a door stopper! These hand axes were mined near Mount William near Lancefield north of Melbourne and up here at Narrandera is nearing the Northern edge of their distribution... nearly 400 km's from where they were mined. Captain Sturt in the 1840's noted that he saw 3 greenstone axe blanks <not ground> traded for a possum skin cloak of 72 skins on the Murray. Archaelogists estimate that the cloak was one mans work over 6-8 months so the value of a greenstone hand axe was immense. I pointed out to the cousin-in-law that he had the equivalent of a big screen plasma holding open all his doors but I don't think he really got it.

Since I have been back here I have been given a greenstone hand axe and a native millet grinding stone set by old people.
I'll take some photos tomorrow if anyone is interested.

Mick.

That would be interesting to see mick, i was always fascinated at how they knapped stone tools. Apparently at a lecture in a university, the lecturer had a arrow point found at an aboriginal site and he had a piece of meat and cut it with the arrow head. He then selected a female to do the same and apparently she hardly even tried, just shows you how strong and sharp they must have been. Truly amazing seeing how old it was.

These are all made of Cambrian volcanic greenstone or amphibole hornfels from Central Victoria.

The two on the right are grooved and notched for hafting. They could be anywhere from 200 to 5000 years old. The one on the top left is from a different tool tradition and is most probably older than 5000 and could be up to 17000 years old. There is no way to tell and it is a real shame because they were all collected and no details recorded sometime in the olden days when it wasn't illegal to disturb aboriginal sites. I'm glad to have them but they would be better off in the ground waiting for an archaeologist.



The three of them viewed from the top. Notice the third one, the oldest one, has a squared off back while the other two are the classic "hand axe" shape even though they would have been hafted... lol.





Mick.

hate to be cutting down a big box tree with one of those

i have found a few mortar and pecils (spelling) or grinding rocks over the years.

they get turned up when cultivating land. probably the same way they got underground

Wow those would have hurt if it got you on the head Dave, I think your talking about pestles. Mortar or Mortise and pestles are and were used for grinding stuff up.

thats them