Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry
The Mount William Stone Ax Quarry is a historic quarries in the Australian state of Victoria . The site is located near Lancefield , about 70 km from Melbourne .
In the Woiwurrung language of the Aborigines , the place is called Wil-im-ee Moor-ring , which means Steinbeilplatz . From 1500 years ago until the European colonization of Australia , the broken rock was used by the Aborigines to make stone axes , which were used as tools, prestige and cult objects.
The stone suitable for the production of stone axes is found only in a few places in Australia. Due to its special importance, the Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry was declared a monument of national importance by the Australian federal government on February 18, 2008 .
rock
The rock used for the stone axes is classified as Hornfels , which emerged as a metamorphite in the Cambrian . Hornfels is formed when shale rocks are exposed to a temperature of 600 to 700 ° C. In doing so, they lose their slate structure and a dense, directionless and hard rock is created .
This rock deposit is described as greenish-black and reaches a thickness of 500 meters at Mount William .
meaning
So far, 1,400 stone axes from these quarries have been found in various locations in Australia, some of them up to 1,000 km from their place of origin. The rock called greenstone was broken into 268 pits and shafts , some of which extend several meters below the surface of the earth. The quarry area extends for several kilometers along the ridge on Mount William . In addition to the mining sites, there are 34 proven locations - up to 20 meters in diameter - where these stone axes were formed. The stone axes were so popular with the Aborigines that they were traded over large areas of Southeast Australia.
There are no written records of the Aboriginal people about Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry , although leaders of the tribe, so-called Ngurungaeta , reported about it. In the years 1882 and 1884 who explained Wurundjeri -Ngurunaeta William Barak the amateur anthropologist William Howitt the importance of the quarries to the effect that his Aboriginesstamm the keeper of the quarries was. There is also another report on the quarry use of Ngurungaeta Billibellary , whose father was Bebejan . It is undisputed that only the Ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri were the traditional owners of these quarries and determined the distribution and extraction of the stone axes. The Wurundjeri were a clan in the Kulin Alliance . When determining the regional distribution of stone axes it was found that 70 percent of stone axes were not found in the Kulin area.
Monument protection
The quarries of Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry were known to Europeans since 1855, when Wilhelm von Blandowski visited this place. In the early 20th century, numerous people came to this place and expressed a desire to protect it. It was first protected in 1976 when public interest in pre-European history developed in Australia and in February 2008 the quarry site was entered on the Australian National Heritage List .
Function and Myth
Stone axes were an essential tool used by the Aborigines, and they were available in every camp. They were mostly attached to wooden handles and used to shape canoes, spears, clubs and battle shields. Trees were also felled to capture possums , beehives opened, and edible insects were knocked out of wood.
William Barack stated, “There were places… in which the whole tribe had a special interest. Such a place was the "stone quarry" at Mount William ... When neighboring tribes wanted stone for tomahawks they usually sent a messenger for Billibellary [the main custodian]. When they arrived they camped around about the place. Billibellary's father when he was alive split up the stones and gave it away for presents such as rugs, weapons, ornaments, belts, necklaces ". (German: There were places ... in which the entire tribe had a special interest. Such a place was the quarry on Mount William ... If a neighboring tribe needed stone axes, they sent a messenger to Billibellary [the keeper]. When they got there, So they camped near this place. When Billibellary's father was still alive, he split the stones and gave them to the tribe. He received gifts such as carpets, weapons, ornaments, belts or necklaces).
It is believed that Mount William's stone axes were important to many Aboriginal tribes in southeastern Australia, including the Kulin, less because of their hardness or function, but rather because of their great mythical significance. They are said to have been used less as a tool, but rather to prevent "heaven on earth" from falling. Another interpretation assumes that this view relates to a cosmic natural event long before the invasion of the British and another that the ancestors foresaw the invasion. There is also a belief that stone axes were used as a medium of exchange.
Web links
- dpi.nsw.gov.au (PDF; 662 kB): Mining by Aborigines - Australia's first miners (English)
- environment.gov.au : Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry, Powells Trk, Lancefield, VIC, Australia (numerous photos of the place) (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c environment.gov.au ( memento of the original from November 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 683 kB): Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry, Victoria , in English, accessed on August 30, 2011
- ^ Academia.edu : Adam Brumm: 'The Falling Sky': Symbolic and Cosmological Associations of the Mt William Greenstone Ax Quarry, Central Victoria, Australiaby , p. 181, in English, accessed August 30, 2011
- ↑ ads.ahds.ac.uk : McBride: Petrology of the greenstone quarries and Their products p.122
- ^ According to Adam Brumm, the anthropologist was not Alfred Howitt as published in a government document
- ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 25 kB): Commonwealth of Australia Gazette of February 25, 2008, in English, accessed on August 30, 2011
- ^ Adam Brumm: The Falling Sky . P. 191
- ↑ environment.gov.au : Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry more information , in English, accessed August 30, 2011
- ^ Adam Brumm: The Falling Sky . P. 193
Coordinates: 37 ° 18 ' S , 142 ° 36' E