Pondering the Abyss:Historical documents

1788 to 1793

This is the story of what came before and what went after Phillip stood on a high point, which cannot be accurately located, looking for a river he mistakenly surmised issued forth from a gap in the Blue Mountains to the west. A hill between the cliffs he called Richmond Hill. We do not know whether he was disappointed that there was no sign of the jewel-rich volcanoes that Lord Morton had hinted to Cook might lay in the South Land when he reached Richmond Hill in 1789. What is now called Richmond Hill lies to the north of Phillip’s 1789 Richmond Hill. The river, now dammed, nutrient-enriched effluent, he called both the Hawkesbury and the Nepean River. Others called it Tench’s River or Worgan’s River. Its older name may have beenDe-rab-bun,[1]Deerubbin,[2]Venrubbin,[3]Deerubbun,[4]Deerabubbin,[5]Durububbin,[6] or Derrubin.[7]It would be tempting to think that Edward Cox, grandson of William Cox, drew upon his childhood friendship with Aboriginal children on the Fernhill estate at Mulgoafor the name of his thoroughbred stallion, Darebin. However, Cox bought the horse off Samuel Gardiner, a Melbourne breeder and where Darebinis a Wurundjeri word apparently meaning swallow.[8]The fact that there is so much confusion over the names of a place reveals much of the ways in which the history of it and its people have been recorded.[9]

The geology and Prehistory of the Nepean Hawkesbury

The pre-history of the Nepean Hawkesbury has provided multiple examples of non-Aboriginal people projecting explanations of the origins, nature or character of Aboriginal people onto snippets of language, stone tools, geological oddities, a misunderstood Dreaming story, or even a non-Aboriginal artefact. A lack of direct contact with Aboriginal people does not appear to have been a hindrance to these cobbling endeavours.

Modern archaeology has evolved into a nuanced science. Early ideas of discrete and hierarchical races populating Australia have been discredited in the face of overwhelming evidence showing that environmental factors have enormous impacts upon people’s physical appearance and culture. Most importantly, modern archaeology shows that prehistoric Aboriginal people were dynamic and resilient in their response to in climatic and sea level changes during the last Ice Age.[10]However, these findings must be balanced with the knowledge that Aboriginal people have had little impact upon the archaeological processes and are left with the cultural legacy of disturbed sites and removed artefacts.

It is, however, impossible for modern archaeology to throw light into every aspect of prehistoric Aboriginal life. White settlement has destroyed many traces of an Aboriginal presence particularly on the Cumberland Plain. In 2001, 4,340 Aboriginal sites in the Sydney Region had been registered. These sites include archaeological deposits, shell middens, engraved images, pigment images, grinding grooves, abraded channels, water holes, stone quarry or source, scarred trees and carved trees. In addressing archaeological issues have deliberately not addressed engraved and pigment images or scarred and carved trees because of their spiritual significance.

The acidic soils of the Sydney Basin ensure that bone and skin in archaeological sites rarely survive more than three to four thousand years. Shell deposits can survive up to 6,450 years. In the oldest sites, stone artefacts and ochre are the only evidence of human occupanceand form the basis of many archaeological sites in the Sydney Basin.[11][12]

Traditionally archaeologists favoured rock shelter over open sites for excavations.Rock shelters offer artefacts deposited in stratigraphical layers with charcoal deposits that lend themselves readily to dating. However, as has been increasingly realised artefacts can often be vertically displaced, confusing their interpretation. Open sites are more of an archaeological challenge as charcoal is frequently not present.[13]

Some of the significant sites in western Sydney listed chronologically with their earliest radiometric age and standard deviation follow.

  • Cranebrook Terrace, an open site41,700 +3000/-2000 years.
  • Shaws Creek K2, a rock shelter14,7000 +/-250.
  • Jamisons Creek 1, an open site7,010 +/-110.
  • Rouse Hill RH/CD7, an open site4,690 +/-80.
  • Lapstone Creek, a rock shelter3,650 +/-100.
  • Quakers Hill 2, an open site3,450 +/-60.
  • Second Ponds RH/SP125, an open site3,351 +/-40.
  • Plumpton Ridge, an open site2250 +/-89.
  • Parklea PK/CD1+2, an open site1,070 +/-60.
  • Second Ponds RH/SP13C, an open site989 +/-38.[14]

In 1986 Jim Kohen broadened the focus of archaeological investigation by identifying 222 open deposits on the Cumberland Plain between Richmond, Penrith and Blacktown. The study found that 65% were within 100 m of a permanent water supply. Within the western Cumberland Plain silcrete, tuff and chert were the dominant stone materials. Superficially it would appear that the greatest population densities were on the coast, coastal estuaries and the Hawkesbury sandstones; and the fewest on the Wianamatta shales. This, however, may be an underestimation as closer settlement on the Cumberland Plain destroyed evidence of an Aboriginal presence.[15]

Historically the narrow reliance upon stone artefacts has distorted understandings of prehistoric Aboriginal life. The early archaeology of the Sydney Basin focused on the shape of stone artefacts found in rock shelters which created impressions of sudden and transformational change, thereby supporting theories that Australia was peopled by successive waves of racially distinct people. Modern archaeology focuses more on the quantitative analysis of technologies used in the manufacture of stone implements rather than the shape of implements which suggests that changes may have been more incremental than previously thought.[16]

Modern methodologies still remain unable to address the significance of different sites. A site may have been a base camp, a transit camp, a meal place, a quarry or a butchering site.[17] “Thenumbers of stone artefacts found in each archaeological site varies enormously – some have very few whilst others have thousands.” Such variations may reflect changes in numbers, mobility patterns and length of stay as well as the possibility that the purpose of the site may have changed over time.We do not know how the people moved in response to falling and rising sea levelsor what archaeological sites lie beneath the waves. We do not know whether population levels fell or rose in response to the harsh weather of the Ice Age. We do not know why new technologies appeared and others fell into disuse. We do not know why some raw materials replaced others. We do not know how different sites were used. Unfortunately archaeology provides little insights into the early colonial period, “most excavated middens and archaeological deposits in the Sydney region have not revealed a discrete early colonial stratigraphic layer and/or the upper deposits have been disturbed (sometime up to 20cm deep) by recent rockshelter users such as 1930s depression occupants, scout groups and anglers.”[18]

It is not possible to explore the archaeological record of western Sydney without addressing the geology of the Sydney Basin. The formation of the Sydney Basin began with the deposition of marine sediments in the Early Permian, 280-260 million years ago. During the Triassic Period sedimentary layers were deposited: the Narrabeen Group of lithic sandstone, quartz sandstone, claystones, siltstones and conglomerate; the quartz rich Hawkesbury sandstone with interbedded shale, the thin beds of Mittagong sandstone; and the Wianamatta shales, sandstones and claystones. In the middle of this period, 187-163 million years ago, uplift took place and the basin was created and became dry land. During the Cenozoic Era, less than 60 million years ago, sedimentation from rivers, many of which are long gone, led to the formation of iron and aluminium-rich laterite soils on the Hawkesbury sandstone, Narrabeen and Wianamatta Groups.

While many Aboriginal stone implements have volcanic origins few were quarried directly from places such as Prospect Hill which is the remnant of volcanic activity about 210 million years ago or the basalt caps of Mount Banks, Mount Tomah, Mount Wilson etc., which are all that are left of volcanic flows between 17 and 14 million years ago.[19]. Pebbles, cobbles and boulders with a volcanic origin were washed down from these places into the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers to be sourced by Aboriginal people.

The silcrete cobbles of Plumpton Ridge were a significant quarry for Aboriginal people well into the Nineteenth Century. Plumpton Ridge is a barely noticeable rise dividing Bells Creek from Eastern Creek. Once it was a river bed, laid down approximately twenty five to twenty million years ago as part of the St Marys Formation. It is possible that silcrete cobbles from Plumpton Ridge were washed down into the Nepean River.

Whether the eastern escarpment of the Blue Mountains was the result of the uplift of the Lapstone and Kurrajong Monoclines, or the slipping down of the Sydney Basin is irrelevant to this work. What is significant to this work is that the Nepean River shifted course three to two million years ago to run north along the escarpment cutting into the Triassic Hawkesbury sandstone and forming the Castlereagh Neck.[20]

During the Pleistocene Epoch[21] unconsolidated terraces were deposited along current and old channels of the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers. These terraces begin at the Nepean’s junction with the Warragamba and extend to Pitt Town.

Around 50,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene when the area began to slip into the last ice age; the Nepean River was larger, stronger and more variable than it is now. During the Holcene,[22]basal gravels and a sandy-clay overburden derived from the Tertiary and Pleistocene terraces were laid down in the bed of the current Nepean and Hawkesbury Riversto form the Castlereagh Terrace upstream of the Castlereagh Neck where the river narrows, braids and drops in a series of small falls.[23]These basal gravel beds contain fine-grained siliceous rock types[24] that lent themselves readily to flaking and igneous or metamorphic rock types suitable for making ground-edge hatchets.[25]Sandstone was used for filing or grinding these tools.[26]

The open sites on the Wianamatta Group soils are dominated by silcrete, tuff or chert, with very little quartz which meant that the raw materials on the Cumberland Plain lent themselves more readily to flaking rather than the ground-edge traditions. The Pleistocene Agnes Band Sand and the Cranebrook Formation contained pebbles, cobbles and boulders of quartz, quartzite, chert, porphyry, basalt, acid volcanic, hornfels and occasionally silcrete. Silcrete, silicified wood, quartzite and quartz pebbles, cobbles and occasional boulders are found in the Mulgoa, South and Eastern Creek valleys, the Rickaby Creek Gravel and the Maroota Sands in the north-west. As well porphyry, hornfels and tuff have been found in the Rickabys Creek Gravels, and jasper, agate, chert and unspecified metamorphic rocks in the Maroota Sands. Ochres and white pipeclay are found as pockets and lenses within both sandstone and shale beds.[27]

Aboriginal people hunted and foraged along the river using knapped choppers, steep-edged scrapers and serrated flakes. These tools utilised both the core and the flakes; and were made by both free-hand percussion and bi-polar techniques.[28]These implements have been dated to 50,000 years and are amongst the oldest known signs of a human presence in Australia. From wood and plant material Aboriginal people probably made spears, clubs, digging sticks, nets and baskets, however, no traces remain.[29]

While no fossilised remains of mega fauna have been found in the Sydney Region it is likely the short-faced kangaroos, marsupial lions, giant horned tortoises and diprotodons became extinct across Australia about 40, 000 years ago. Their extinction remains controversial. The most recent research uses statistical modelling to argue that while climate change had a part in mega fauna extinction; Aboriginal fire practices which changed the environment were a more significant factor in their extinction.[30] This is a more nuanced approach than early theories which argued that Aboriginal people “blitzed” the megafauna into extinction.[31]

During the Last Glacial Maximum, 30,000 to 18,000 years ago sea levels dropped between 110 and 130 metres lower than present levels. At Broken Bay the coast was about 20 kilometres further to the east.[32] Temperatures were about 6 to 10 degrees celsius lower and there was less rainfall.[33] Rainforests and tall open forests contracted and were replaced by woodlands. A rock shelter at King's Tableland in the Blue Mountains dated to 26,500 years ago offers the earliest radio-carbon dated evidence of Aboriginal occupance in the region.[34]

Around 18,000 years ago the climate became warmer and wetter as the glaciers retreated and sea levels began to rise again. A radio-carbon date of 17,800 years establishes the presence of Aboriginal people in the Shaws Creek KII rock shelter. The assemblage of stone artefacts is similar to other rock shelters in the Blue Mountains, Upper Mangrove Creek and South Coast with variations representative of different local source materials. The earliest artefacts at Shaws Creek included cores and flakes resultant from their manufacture. The most common tools were retouched flakes. These were larger than those produced in the Late Holocene, 4,000 to 3,500 years ago. The smallest tools were thumbnail scrapers and dentated saws (serrated flakes). Tuff and chert were the main raw materials, though silcrete and quartz were also used.

The last glacial period ended about 11,700 years ago. The coastline stabilised in its present location between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago while the river valleys continued to fill. About 7,000 years ago the sea reached its highest level about 1 to 2 metres above present levels and did not stabilise at present levels till about 1,400 years ago. Between 11,500 and 7,000 years ago precipitation and temperatures continued to rise reaching their maximum about 8,000 years ago.

Core tool and flake artefactsmanufactured in the early Holocene period, 11,700 to 5,000 years ago, by both free hand percussion and bi-polar techniques have been found in greater numbers in sites which were occupied during this period such as Curracurrang 1, Darling Mills SF2, Jamison Creek and Regentville.However, the bipolar technique increased in usage over time, not replacing free hand percussion, but adding to it. These implements begin to appear at the Upper Mangrove about 8,500 years ago and at Capertee 3 about 7,500 years ago.[35]

The bi-polar technique involved shaping or retouching a flake along one edge to create an implement with a thick steep angled back, which lent itself being gripped or fastened to wood. These backed implements are usually less than 30mm in length but can be up to 80mm long.[36] Originally thought to be barbs or tips on spears recent analysis shows they were multi-purpose and multi-functional, being used in cutting and scraping wood, plants, skin and bone[37] as well as being fastened to spears with resin.[38]

Small tool production proliferated with the harsher and more unpredictable weather conditions brought about by the El Nino Southern Oscillation Index during the mid Holocene Period about 7,000 years ago. People were probably forced to forage further for food with lighter tools.[39]Between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago the production of backed artefacts peaked.[40] Around 5,000 years ago more favourable conditions returned. Around 3,000 years ago there was increased variability in conditions with the return of the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Woodlands increased at expense of rain forest and forest. Ground-edged hatchets and grinding grooves begin to appear about 4,000 years ago.[41] In south-east Australia the backed blade was predominant and in north-west Australia the surface-flaked point and adze was predominant.

The number of sites in the Sydney Region and the number of artefacts increased in number around this time. The earliest Bondaian artefacts at Lapstone rock-shelter are at least 3,650 years old.[42] Along the coast around 1,600-1,400 years ago there appears to have been a shift from fine-grained siliceous silcrete, tuff, chert and petrified wood to quartz as the preferred raw material. This shift has also been noted in sandstone rock shelters such as Lapstone Creek in the hinterland, however, it occurred later. Raw material changes in the older stratified sites appear to be associated with changes in the types of tools used, e.g., the Bondi points; and the ways in which they were manufactured. This may reflect the impact of environmental and/or cultural factors.[43] The use of backed implements lessened or ceased between 1,500 to 1,000 years ago on the coast and somewhat later on the sandstone hinterland. Attenbrow thinks that backed implements were last used 340 years ago on the Cumberland Plain.[44] In the sandstone country the manufacture of ground-edge hatchets increased. Quartz continued as the main resource for bi-polar flaking; but silcrete, tuff and chertcontinued to be used, particularly on the Cumberland Plain. These changes may reflect changed access to raw materials, particularly along the coast. Attenbrow suggests that mobility may have declinedand that there were three distinct groups, those on: the sandstone country, the Cumberland plain and the coast. There does not appear to evidence to support the hypothesis that the kangaroo population was over-hunted and that the hatchet manufacture was increased for possum hunting.[45]