The people of the Torres Strait islands also used them for hunting dugong. Death spear All backed blades were microliths, usually less than 3 cm long, and all appear to have been used for a similar purpose. It has been suggested that their main use was in rows of barbs along the sides of death spears. These spears were deadly weapons, the barbs causing great blood loss in the victim, human in fighting, animal in hunting. 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. It can be used for digging, hunting, fighting, making fire and cutting knives. The aboriginal tool is always linked with magic and sorcery. They believe that they need super natural source for their tools.
Read More : Facts about Aboriginal Cultures. If you want to know the location of a certain aboriginal group, you can check out their tool. The tool definitely reflects their place of living. The aboriginals who live in coastal area use fishbone tip on the weapons. If you check out the aboriginal people who live in the desert , you can find them using the stone tips.
Even though their tools are varied based on the region, most of them use various vesting for drinking and eating. To hunt or fight, they use spears, axe heads, knives, scrapers and digging sticks. A hand axe shaped like a giant double mussel shell. Length 17 cm. Central Australia. Photograph by David M. A stone chisel tuhla is mounted with plant gum mindrie to the end of a wooden stick koondi , and used to shape a boomerang kirra.
These are local names used by the Wangkangurru people of inland Australia. Using an upper grinding stone to smooth a boomerang. Lake Eyre district, s. Using a hammer stone to break off flakes from a core. These flakes are then fashioned into knives and scrapers.
A sharp-edged quartzite knife from Cape York Peninsula, northern Queensland. Upper and lower grinding stones made from basalt, used to grind vegetable, nut and seed foods. Cedar Creek, north Queensland, circa In this region, grindstones about 60cm long and 30 cm wide were kept in every hut.
Sometimes traces of wood, plant food, or animal blood can survive on the edges of flaked stone tools. Specific marks and damage on a tool from use can help tell us what it was used for. This is because different tasks, such as wood carving or scraping animal skins, damaged the edge in different ways. By finding the original source of stone that was used to make tools, it is sometimes possible to trace the movement of stone within an area. This tells us about Aboriginal systems of trade, exchange and social alliances.
There were a number of changes to the stone tools used by Aboriginal people over time. Because of this, stone tools can help provide an approximate age for the Aboriginal occupation of an area. Flaked stone tools are one of a range of artefacts that provide Aboriginal people today with an important link to their culture and past. 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.
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