Notes on an Aboriginal Fishing Site at Lake Wollumboola

PERCY H.

LAKE WOLLUMBOOLA is a shallow lake closed from the sea by a sand bar. It is situated on the South Coast of New South Wales about a mile south of Crookhaven Heads, where the Shoalhaven River empties into the sea.

About 1930 a skeleton was found buried in a sandhill on the northern shore. This sandhill has now disappeared and an ancient camp site has been exposed.

The camp was made on an old land level at a time when vegetation grew on the sandhill. The midden does not cover the entire area but consists of heaps of shells 15cms. and more thick.

Since the site was exposed about 1960, a careful watch has been kept, and material has been collected as it has been exposed. Fish bones are plentiful, also bird and marsupial bones. The smaller bones have had the ends broken off, and the larger bones have been split for the removal of bone marrow. The jawbone of a dingo had been treated this way.

The type of shell in the middens vanes: the northern middens contain more turban (NineZZa torpuata), and one is very largely heart cockle (Cardiwm racketti), while the southern middens are mostly black or wharf pile mussel (MytiZus plandatus) .

Also, worked stone is much more common on the northern middens than the southern ones. From the former have come bondi points and geometric microliths. The numbers were such at one spot as to suggest the location of a humpy there.

FISH-HOOKS

The map reference is 776859.

Particularly interesting have been the discoveries of shell fish-hooks : two from the

* I View St., Nowra, N.S.W.

WOOLEY*

northern middens, about 14 from the southern ones, and another from an intermediate midden. Three fish-hook files have been collected and a number of stones which could have been used as files, though some perhaps were sinkers.

Fish-hook files used here are very pointed, the point bearing most wear. The butts are sometimes broken off.

Material The shell from which the hooks are made

is commonly known as turban shell (NineZZa torquata). This shell has the form of a low coiled spire, ornamented with striae and with growth lines parallel to the mouth aperture. The shell, which has a pearly lustre, is quite thick and very strong. The hooks were made from the inner pearly layers, as the outer layers are too soft to be of any use.

Manwfacture The first operation was to break a turban

shell, and taking one of the larger pieces from near the shell mouth to chip it into a blank. The blank was chipped from the larger body whorl so that the long axis of the hook lay parallel to the spiral striae and the shorter axis was roughly parallel to the growth lines. Blanks found are all chipped to roughly oval shape, larger specimens measuring 35 111111. x 25 mm., and smaller specimens 25 mm. x 20 mm.

With the blanks prepared, the next step was to remove the centre. The outside was then shaped by filing. On the better preserved specimens the file marks show that the file was held at right angles to the hook during the filing of both inside and outside edges.

JUNE, 1966 MANKIND VOL. 6, No. 7

Hook Types The completed fish-hook is usually

C-shaped (Fig. I, B), ranging from 37 mm. x 25 mm. to 13 mm. x 10 mm., with individual variations for line attachment and in the angle and length of the point. One hook of the C-type has no notch. Other C-type hooks have mostly one notch, which may be filed in the inside or outside edge. Some C-type hooks have two notches.

FIG. I

All the 15 or so hooks from the southern and intermediate middens are of the C-type.

The two hooks from the northern middens more closely resemble the letter J (Fig. I, A). This type is a much larger and stronger hook with a straight stem and two opposing notches. These notches have been filed into the hooks to make the line attachment more secure.

BONE POINTS A number of bone points have been found

almost wholly on the southern middens. They are pieces of split bone with one end ground to a point and the other end broken.

There are: 19 pieces 15 mm.-20 mm. in length. 17 pieces 20 mm.-3o mm. I piece 43mm. I piece 3% mm. : both ends ground

and small notch 16mm. from broader end.

I piece 33 mm. : both ends ground. I piece 18 mm. : ground point one

These could have been points and barbs for fish spears, or they might have been small muduks, in the sense of fish gorges. Such would have served well for catching fish like flathead, which will swallow a large bait into the stomach and require little strain to land. It may have been easier to break the muduk out than remove any other way.

CONCLUSION Two types of shell fish-hook have been

found on small shell middens near the northern shore of Lake Wollumboola ; they have been called the C-type and the J-type.

The J-type (two examples) has been found on the more northerly midden series, the C-type (about 15 examples) on the more southerly one. These two series differ in their faunal composition, and in the amount and type of flaked stone found in them. Bone points are also more typical of the southern series.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Mr. Jack Golson, who

suggested these notes and edited the finished draft. Thanks are also due to Mr. Peter Bindon for his assistance.

end and other round.