Appendix C - Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment - Peabody Energy

Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment
North Wambo Underground Mine Modification
4.1.3 Campsites and Shelters
J.W. Fawcett (1898:152) described the preferred campsites of the “Wonnah-ruah [sic]” tribal district in the
Hunter River catchment area as being located close to fresh water and food resources. A vantage ground
was also favourable as a precaution against attacks on the camp.
The materials used to construct the campsites and shelters were made from organic matter which is highly
unlikely to have been preserved in the archaeological record.
Fawcett (1898:153) also provided a description of the huts constructed for shelter. These huts were
generally erected using forked sticks planted in the ground with straight sticks laid in the forks and covered
over with sheets of bark sourced from local trees.
4.1.4 Clothing
Summer weather and the milder days of autumn and spring required little in the way of protective clothing;
winter however, saw the use of animal skins for both clothing and as blankets (Heath n.d.:43). Miller
(1886:352) describes Aboriginal people using possum skin cloaks with an ornamental nautilus shell
suspended around the neck on a string.
4.1.5 Burials and Post Contact Phase
There are various reports concerning burial practices of Aboriginal people (Threlkeld in Gunson 1974).
Burials appeared to be the most common form of internment with a well-documented preference for burials in
sandy or loose soils, most likely resulting from the ease of digging a grave (Threlkeld in Gunson 1974).
4.2 Regional Archaeological Heritage Context
Archaeological evidence suggests that Aboriginal occupation of the Hunter Valley region began at least
35,000 years ago (Koettig 1987). Additional chronological evidence was recovered from the Hunter Valley’s
northeast mountains for which the following dates were assigned 34,580±650 (Beta-17009), >20,000 (Beta-
20056) and 13,020±360 years before present (BP) (Beta-17271) (Koettig 1987, as cited in Attenbrow 2006).
Kuskie (2000:215) identified artefacts at Wollombi Brook located in a clay horizon that have been dated to
between 18,000 and 30,000 years BP. At Glennies Creek, approximately 50km north-west of the project
area, Koettig and Hughes (1983) excavated a hearth on an alluvial terrace where the radiocarbon-dated
charcoal and geomorphological evidence provided a date of between 10,000 to 13,000 years BP. These
archaeological sites show that the Hunter Valley region was occupied during the Pleistocene, dated up to
11,000 years ago (Short 2000); Pleistocene sites are generally rare and therefore contain significant
archaeological/scientific information as well as demonstrating the long occupation of Aboriginal people in the
region.
The majority of Aboriginal sites in the region, however, are dated to the more recent Holocene (