Indigenous artifacts uncovered
in valley
Gladstone Observer 8/1/2002
By Rebecca Josey
HUNDREDS of indigenous artefacts have been uncovered in areas of the Boyne Valley as part
of a cultural heritage project.
Archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman said excavation works were being carried out in the various
creek areas expected to be inundated with water after the Lake Awoonga wall-raising
project.
Dr Gorman was leading a team of trainee field technicians and said works being conducted
at Futter Creek had revealed an open scatter of stone tools.
"We've uncovered a high density of stone tools on the surface and hundreds more
underneath." she said.
"I have not counted them yet because there are literally hundreds and some of them
are so tiny."
Dr Gorman said all excavation works were being carried out by hand using geological picks,
trowels and mattocks.
"We excavate one sqare metre by one square metre at a time and dig down 5cm at a
time," she said.
She said a lot of high quality quartz had been identified indicating Boyne Valley natives
had exploited vast amounts of the resource on site.
"Most other sites have revealed small amounts of pebble quartz but this site
indicates its people were intensively working with high quality quartz," Dr German
said.
Other finds included seeds and shell fragments.
"The seeds will give us an idea of what vegetation was around at the time and the
shell fragments are mostly those of mussels meaning an exploitation of that
resource," she said.
Dr German said surface recordings had been conducted at 10 other sites in the inundation
area and once the group finished at Futter Creek, it would move on to another area in the
lake precinct
END OF REPORT
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