Appendix C - Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment - Peabody Energy

Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment
North Wambo Underground Mine Modification
4.0 Aboriginal Heritage Context
The Aboriginal heritage assessment process requires that the significance of Aboriginal sites is assessed
within a project area. Cultural significance is gathered by way of consultation with the Aboriginal community.
In order to develop a predictive model for Aboriginal cultural heritage in the project area, it is important for the
local and regional context to be taken into account. Historical records also provide additional information for
the interpretation of archaeological sites.
4.1 Historic Records of Aboriginal Occupation
It is necessary to acknowledge that early historical documents were produced for a number of reasons and
may contain inaccuracies and/or bias in their reporting of events or other aspects of Aboriginal culture
(L'Oste-Brown, Godwin et al. 1998). Nonetheless, some historical documents provide important information
and insights into local Aboriginal customs and material culture at the time of non-Indigenous settlement and
occupation of the region.
In the late nineteenth century a number of writers described the Aboriginal peoples of the Hunter Valley. J W
Fawcett (1898:152) described the “Wonnah-ruah [sic]” tribal district as that area drained by the Hunter River
and its tributaries which covered some 2,000 square miles. He estimated the population in 1848 to have
numbered between 500-600 peoples and provides details of some of their customs and dialect. This
estimate of the population is similar to that reported by Robert Miller (1886:352) who quotes an informant
from the Hunter River district as estimating the Wonnarua population in 1841 as being around 500
individuals. Miller also noted that by 1886 the population was almost extinct (1886:353).
According to Moore (1970:28) the Wonnarua territory was bounded by the Worimi who occupied the
estuarine Hunter River and coastal land in the east, the Gamilaroi to the south-west, the Gewegal to the
north-west and the Darkinjung to the south.
4.1.1 Aboriginal Implements
Fawcett (1898:152) provided a detailed description of the Wonnarua weapons and implements including the
spear, woomera or throwing stick, shield, boomerang (both returning and non-returning), tomahawk or
hatchet, flint knife, chip of flint or shell for skinning animals, club, yam stick for digging, bags of plaited
swamp grass, wooden bowls, nets for catching fish and bark canoes.
4.1.2 Food and Useful Plants
Miller (1886:352) recorded that kangaroos, emus and reptiles were used as sources of protein and described
how a variety of roots, most importantly that of the water lily, were roasted and eaten. Fawcett (1898:152)
stated that wallabies, bandicoots, kangaroo rats, opossums [sic], rats, snakes, lizards, fish, shellfish,
caterpillars, grubs, larvae of wasps, other insects and birds were used by the Aboriginal people as food
resources.
W.J. Needham (1981) conducted interviews and research which resulted in a comprehensive study of
Aboriginal sites in the Cessnock - Wollombi area. He describes Xanthorrhea australis (grass tree), which is
found in the Singleton area, as being an important resource (Needham 1981). Various parts of the grass
tree were useful to make spear shafts, for sealing cracks in canoes and for securing stone tips in hunting
spears (Needham 1981). It was also used to produce fire when two pieces of the dried flower stem were
rubbed together (Needham 1981).
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