Aboriginal sites of Victoria form an important record of human occupation for probably more than 40,000 years. They may be identified from archaeological remains, historical and ethnographic information or continuing oral traditions and encompass places where rituals and ceremonies were performed, occupation sites where people ate, slept and carried out their day to day chores, and ephemeral evidence of people passing through the landscape, such as a discarded axe head or isolated artefact.
Victorian Aboriginal sites include shell middens, scarred trees, cooking mounds, rock art, burials, ceremonial sites and innumerable stone artefacts. These stone flakes represent the tools Aboriginal people used, such as knives, spear points, scrapers and awls, and the waste material left behind when they were made. Commonly referred to as stone artefact scatters such sites can be found on the surface or exposed by ploughing or erosion, or through careful archaeological excavation.
Types of sites
Scarred trees result from removing bark for the manufacture of shields, coolamons, shelters and other utensils can be found where appropriate species of tree of sufficient age survive. Some trees were marked with designs and symbols. A large river red gum with a canoe scar is located at Heide Gallery in Bulleen.
There have been more than 60 rock art sites identified in the Grampians National Park which contains about 80% of the known Aboriginal rock art sites in Victoria, with a number of new discoveries after the fires of January 2006. They depict humans, human hands, animal tracks and birds, while some are open to the public and are readily accessible including: Billimina (Glenisla shelter), Jananginj Njani (Camp of the Emu's Foot), Manja (Cave of Hands), Larngibunja (Cave of Fishes), Ngamadjidj (Cave of Ghosts, from the word Ngamadjidj), and Gulgurn Manja (Flat Rock). Nearby Bunjil's Shelter, which illustrates Bunjil, the creator, is in the Black Range near Stawell. A painting thought to be of a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) is noted from Mt Pilot and the paintings at Mudgegonga rock shelter in north-eastern Victoria are possibly 3500 years old.
Ceremonial sites are rare, but two large stone arrangements have been found at Wurdi Youang near Mount Rothwell and Carisbrook. others have been identified from Oral tradition, although archaeological remains are no longer evident such as the Corroboree Tree at Richmond oval was a significant gathering place for the Wurundjeri people. A number of earth rings have been identified in Sunbury, which, although lacking historical or ethnographic evidence, have been interpreted as ceremonial Bora rings.
Evidence of stone quarrying is rare, but the Mount William stone axe quarry is one of a number of stone sources used for making tools which were traded long distances throughout central and western Victoria and into New South Wales.
Only a relatively small number of burials have been identified in Victoria, most of which are associated with sand dunes along the coast or in the north west of the state. Kow Swamp is particularly significant for evidence of 13000 year old burial rituals using a headband of kangaroo incisors similar to those worn by Aboriginal people until recently, and for consistent burial practices over a long period. A burial on the banks of the Werribee river has been dated to about 7300 years ago.
Shell middens occur along most of the coastline and some lake-shores and river banks. Most of these were relatively recent (due to the mobile nature of sand) such as Seal Point and Moonlight Head in the Otway Ranges, although some like Mallacoota Inlet in eastern Gippsland have been dated to more than 2500 years ago, and Wilsons Promontory 6500 years ago.
Large earth mounds were built up by deliberate transport of soil and the remains of clay heat retainers in hearths, the collapse of seasonally abandoned turf huts and camp activities. Examples have been found on the Hopkins River flood plain in central western Victoria, and in the Nyah Forest, the oldest is dated to about 2500 years ago.
Fish and eel traps were constructed on many rivers, and while most were probably of organic materials and have left little trace, some, such as at Lake Condah in western Victoria reveal complex systems of excavated channels and stone weirs, dated to 3000 years ago. Stone artefacts found near the bones of now extinct megafauna at Lancefield in central Victoria have suggested Aboriginal people were living alongside giant marsupials 26,000 years ago.