Indigenous History of Wadawurrung and Victorian Country, Lore and Cultural Sciences
Country History

Artefacts

Complete & Continue Next Lesson Learn More

Stone, Wood, and Fire: Artefacts, Weapons, and Trade of Victorian Indigenous Peoples

MLA Educational Series – Victorian Indigenous Knowledge

Before colonisation, Victorian Indigenous peoples sustained highly developed systems of material culture and exchange. Tools and weapons were engineered from the geology, plants and animals of each Country and circulated along trading routes that also carried songs, ceremony and law. Objects were never merely “technologies”; they were embodiments of story, kinship and place (McBryde 1984; Museums Victoria n.d.; Clark & Harradine 1990).

Raw materials: geology, plants, resins

Stone

  • Greenstone (dolerite) from Mount William Quarry on Wurundjeri Country was knapped into axe blanks and traded hundreds of kilometres across south-eastern Australia (McBryde 1984).

  • Basalt/scoria (volcanic plains) provided grinding slabs, hammerstones and hearth stones (First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

  • Silcrete, chert, quartz were flaked into knives, scrapers and spear points in eastern highlands and river terraces (First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

Organic materials

  • Hardwoods (eucalypt, acacia) for clubs (liangle), fighting boomerangs, shields and digging sticks (Museums Victoria n.d.).

  • Fibres (lomandra, poa, rushes) twisted into cordage, nets and baskets; resins (spinifex, grass-tree) used as strong hafting adhesive (Clarke 2011; First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

Weapons and defensive gear

  • Spears of seasoned hardwood, sometimes with stone/bone barbs; spear-throwers (woomeras) increased range and accuracy (Museums Victoria n.d.).

  • Clubs (liangle) for combat and hunting; fighting/non-returning boomerangs for striking; returning boomerangs for signalling and small-game hunting (Museums Victoria n.d.).

  • Shields (softwood/bark) often incised or painted with designs that indexed kinship and Country (Clark & Harradine 1990).

Everyday tools and engineered systems

  • Ground-edge axes for tree-felling, canoe and tool manufacture (McBryde 1984).

  • Scrapers/flake tools for hide-working and cutting plant foods (First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

  • Grinding stones for seeds and ochre (Gott 2015).

  • Digging sticks used—especially by women—for murnong (yam daisy) and tubers, shaping grassland ecologies (Gott 2015).

  • Fibre nets and fish traps along rivers and coasts; on Gunditjmara Country, large-scale stone aquaculture (Budj Bim) channelled and held kooyang (short-finned eels) for harvest and trade—an Indigenous engineering tradition now UNESCO World Heritage (Broome 2005).

Making and performance: how objects were built

  • Percussive flaking generated sharp edges; grinding produced durable axe bevels (First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

  • Fire-hardening strengthened spear and digging-stick tips; resin hafting bound stone to wood; string-making twisted plant fibres into robust cordage for nets, belts and carry-straps (Clarke 2011; Museums Victoria n.d.).

Trade, diplomacy and law

Exchange routes linked the Kulin with neighbours to the north, west and east.

  • Mount William axe blanks moved along the Murray–Darling and into New South Wales and South Australia (McBryde 1984).

  • Ochre, shells, fibre, stone and crafted items travelled between coast, plains and highlands (First Peoples – State Relations 2020).

  • Ceremonial gatherings (Tanderrum) renewed safe-passage agreements and facilitated exchange of goods, songs and marriages—trade as diplomacy and law, not just economy (Clark & Harradine 1990; Broome 2005).

Regional signatures (examples)

  • Volcanic plains (Wadawurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung): basalt grinding slabs; extensive murnong fields maintained with cultural fire (Gott 2015).

  • Granite country (You Yangs/Mt Alexander): rock-wells, quarries and stone arrangements including Wurdi Youang, aligned to solar events and used in sky-law teaching (Hamacher 2012).

  • Western lava flows (Gunditjmara): eel-trap channels, weirs and stone-house foundations (Broome 2005).

  • Coastlines (Boon Wurrung, Wadawurrung, Gunaikurnai): fibre nets, shell artefacts, fish weirs and canoe techniques (Museums Victoria n.d.).

Ceremony and symbolism in objects

Shields, clubs and cloaks carried incised/burnt designs marking clan, totems and story; ochre moved widely for ceremony, art and burial; stone arrangements encoded astronomical knowledge and anchored gatherings (Hamacher 2012; Museums Victoria n.d.).

Colonisation: rupture and survival

Pastoral expansion, frontier violence and new legal regimes disrupted access to quarries, grasslands and sacred places; murnong fields were destroyed; languages and craft teaching were suppressed (Broome 2005; Gott 2015). Yet knowledge persisted in families and is being renewed:

  • Revival programs now teach stone-knapping, fibre work and cultural fire.

  • Site recognition: Budj Bim (UNESCO) and Mount William (National Heritage) affirm deep-time engineering (Broome 2005; McBryde 1984).

  • Museums and ACCOs support community-led care for collections, cultural tourism and education (Museums Victoria n.d.; Wadawurrung TOAC 2021).

Conclusion

Victorian Indigenous artefacts express a precise science of materials, a reading of geology and ecology, and an ethic of law and reciprocity. Despite colonial rupture, objects and places—quarries, grinding stones, eel traps, shields—continue to teach. Their renewal today demonstrates an ongoing story of invention, diplomacy and care for Country.

References

Attribution within the text corresponds to the following sources.

  • Broome, R. (2005) Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

  • Clark, I. & Harradine, L. (1990) The People of the Lakes: The Yuille Occupation of Ballarat. Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services.

  • Clarke, P. (2011) Aboriginal Plant Collectors: Botanists and Australian Aboriginal People in the Nineteenth Century. Kenthurst: Rosenberg.

  • First Peoples – State Relations (2020) Stone Quarries and Toolmaking. Victorian Government.

  • Gott, B. (2015) ‘Aboriginal use of plants in south-eastern Australia,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 127(2), 64–73.

  • Hamacher, D.W. (2012) ‘On Aboriginal astronomy in Victoria,’ Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage, 15, 121–134.

  • McBryde, I. (1984) Kulin Greenstone Quarries: The Social Context of Production and Distribution for the Mt William Site. Canberra: ANU Press.

  • Museums Victoria Collections (n.d.) ‘Weapons and Tools of Aboriginal Victoria.’ Melbourne Museum.

  • Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (2021) Cultural Fire Strategy. Geelong.

 

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter 16/09/2025

 

 

MLA

Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land and community.

www.magiclandsalliance.org

Copyright of MLA

 

Magic Lands Alliance acknowledge the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of communities.