There is much evidence around granite areas in Bowen of large pick type marker stones were these used as tool by some really large men to chip and fashion the larger rocks but I am probably wrong as the mega stone type artifacts fall into Kartan Style, There was a pigmy tribe living in the mountains of the Atherton Tablelands when white man first arrived according to loots of books I have read. So from what I gather there must have ben large amounts of these people to the size of small cities to be so organise especially in the thinking of using their spare time to carve such large almost statute like rock maybe an Easter island influence here.
It has not always been as we find now which is an important idea once mega beast run the land in subtropical parts and there were probably areas of ice in the highlands part of the now ocean's water was tied up meaning more now ocean floor exposed now there has been a flooding in the late Miocene which dealt a blow to all species of large animals and people alike on low level ground then the ocean has receded again and now rising and eating away at the once artifacts of an earlier age. In numerios studies it has been found the Aboriginal of the day hunted the Mega fauna animals by getting them to fall in holes then club to death,
One can look at numerous rocks long most the beaches and some now estuaries and can find numerous artifacts and examples of right angle cutting of the granite extrusions and areas of artefact's and numerous large marker stones near beach areas where the granite fault structures near by are only small and mostly buried it is baffling how they got such large stones to the locations are in with out some basic engineering practises.
The beach bays would have been important areas in past Aboriginal Life areas of lush vegetation round rocks provided shelter for food sources to hunt the ocean when tides receded a collecting place for fish, crustaceans and mollusk at high tide a place to fish and swim and socialise.
This recent link shows how little we know about the evolution of man for a long period of time.
My Book Australia an Ancient Past ( a coverage of all my history blogs with links to details behind highlighted words)
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/million-year-old-human-fossil-find-in-ethiopia-is-oldest-known-human-ancestor/story-fnjwl2dr-1227248570621?from=public_rss
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-28/fossils-found-from-new-human-ancestor-species-scientists/6502696
I probably dispute the walking out of Africa story of evolution as I believe earliest man lived down on what is now deep oceans and eventually moved up on to higher levels of grounds as sea levels rose all around the World. Like we have Little knowledge of the fossil heritage laying on the bed of now oceans of sediments and there is obvious whole cities under water in some area's of the world and the land has not sunk from any geological activity.
http://people.rses.anu.edu.au/lambeck_k/pdf/139.pdf
A useful link allowing one to realise the changing ocean depths along the Australian coast from the late Pleistocene.
If there is scientific evidence of peoples in Asia at 63 thousand years on would hardly see no reason the Aboriginal people were on the fringe near oceans round Australia.
One of the oldest cemeteries in the World holds 40 Aboriginal bodies buried on Kow Swamp shore near the Murray river in Victoria. Previous research shows that these people had thicker skulls and heavily built faces they were first shown to be have been buried only 7000 to 10,000 years ago but recent research of carbon dating of the soil they were buried in showed they were buried some 22,000 years ago during the peak of the last Ice age.
Why is significant one might ask although there wasn't any ice near Kow swamp during the glacial maximum it was a lot cooler than today and had been getting that way for the last 40,000 years .
If the Burial dates are right then the deteriorating climatic conditions could have been the cause of this group evolving robust body size and skull thickness difference rather than some different ancestry link but there is a possibility of another separate different original race of Aboriginal earlier Miocene tribes and these bodies were remnants.
At times during the Miocene when food as in the mega animals that roamed the lands for was plentiful he was numerous in organised small township situations.The theory is born out of social cohesion being the size of the carving small groups make small markers stone so the bigger the territory marker stone the more people that would were involved with the carving of it. Then the group was more organised in most parts of social life from entertainment, to food production and had some form of central Government or group of people as Chiefs in charge of activities not much different to days behaviour just now we have grown more affluent and effluent.
Come later in the Pleistocene the flood of sealevels rising suddenly many peoples lives and knowledge is lost, the people who still survived evidence is with the carving of artifacts seems bit less primitive compared to those that made the Spindle type spears found in Miocene Mt Morgan sediments but no doubt useful for the job they were intended for wounding an animal enough to slow it down then allowing it to walked to death by tracking or running the life out of the wounded animal. The spindle type items are mentioned in the Book Kalkadoons as sacred totem objects maybe kept by over the years by Elders handed down for thousands of generations as a memory of the once existence of great tribes of the Pleistocene just as the Laws and Stories that ensured the preservation of the tribe.
Stone carving or rock engraving in research and tourist value has usually concentrated on the Central Australian rock art as of it's more detailed work. Engraving of rocks was found in most areas except for Victoria and central New South 'Wales east of the Darling river where the Tribes instead made bora rings. There is no mention of possible carving of these bora stones, one has found numerous carved smaller stone in Central Queensland and other parts of Central Australia where there is very little large boulder rocks to carve some massive faults some either gneiss , granite or limestone structures they were able to carve marker stones out off.
Western Australian north is known for it wall paintings some small rock carvings and the odd grinding groove for sharpening of stone axe's. Port Headland, Warburton ranges and the ranges of Central Australia, South Australia into New South Wales round Sydney and along Hawksbury river north to Brisbane Carnarvon to Laura in North Queensland all have noted galleries of rock engraving and carving. Aboriginal people had some intentions whether it be Ceremony or Story telling to keep the past alive but we can only guess their real meaning and never really grasp the spiritual concept it had over the people hold them together as a tribal unit for survival.
Tree carving was prominent in New South Wales and Victoria , circular and square shapes with motifs of animals were carved in the tree's usually marking a well liked elders. Once there was hundreds of carved tree's all over the landscape but over time and clearing of land for agricultural work and just time destroyed most. The tree's were carved at the time of the ceremony but there was never any maintenance done they were once carved avoided maybe because of possibility of upsetting spirits of the dead.
http://www.aboriginalheritage.org/history/history/
Wallabies come out at night to feed on salt near the waters edge maybe eat the odd shellfish like ghost crab and browse on fresh seaweed bought in by the tides.
Bobby Nuts or Sterculia quadrafila grow abundant around the bays of Bowen and produce very prolific once a year
The brush turkey a common bird would come to feed on any scraps left lying on beaches early in morn. Turkeys might have a bit complicated as a bird to prey on so therefore would have been in larger numbers and this would have meant more nest so eggs would have been on the Aboriginal diet just finding them in the mounds of sticks and mulch the turkeys built was the trick.
There is records of white People living with Aboriginals in total harmony, one story is from my hometown of Bowen. We were educated with this knowledge of Jame's Morrill when I went to school and visited the Bowen Historical society Museum on many occasion.
Jame's Morrill was shipwrecked on the Barrier reef in 1846 and washed ashore on the coast of cape Cleveland and survived to live for 17 years among the surrounding tribes till making contact with advancing white settler's at Inkerman station in 1863. Very little records were kept of his ordeal but it is known that he was a tiring worker for better relations with Aboriginal people as the settlers took over more of their land and did add some knowledge of the Aboriginal ways but Authorities didn't take full advantage of this and he returned to Society. He lived for two years in Bowen before being buried at Bowen cemetery in 1865.. He Married a Eliza Ann Ross a servant girl employed by the Police Magistrate Mr P Pinnock and had one child James Ross Morrill born Bowen 1865.
Bowen Historical society still teach of James Morrill's adventures and a Memorial was erected down the Harbour area to the man of courage and great character.
http://journals.publishing.monash.edu/ojs/index.php/ha/article/view/906 an Article about James Morrill
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/shipwrecked-and-kidnapped-a-tale-of-two-castaways/5623562
Bowen was the first Town in North Queensland in 1861 with Dalrymple as Governor. It was a deep water port for the export and import of stock also later a shipping point for some of the copper and Gold of the North. There are numerous small rich finds of gold around Bowen itself. My Grandfather, my Father and other brothers had a small lease at Merango fields. Dad told me one year they had total amount gold produce as 60 ounces, which my grandfather lost buried for safety. My Grandfather Jim Knight had the dark skin of the Aboriginal descendants in our Family, he had a 2 pot stamper in his backyard in George street when I was a child was always building boats some were anchored down Doughty's creek just over the hill about a mile. I grew up with a gold washing dish but lack of good eyesight was a disadvantage so concentrated on fishing and roaming the bush with him and my father finding gems and other minerals . On a journey to my home town to stay with family I remembered where my father had told me of an early settlement during the days of the first settlers on Doughty creek. Dad told me of an Aboriginal man that had the bone pointed at him by a so called with and the man went down to an area where his relatives once lived near Doughty's creek and eventually starved himself to death. I had not explored this area since my childhood picking periwinkles among the mangroves.
Red mangrove ( Bruguiera rhizophora ) <right> was the only useful timber for the Aboriginal people it's timer was hard and springy good for weapon manufacture especially throwing sticks . White mangrove has a toxic sap and leaves when burn would bring on blindness and possible death one could speculate the leaves were used as a possible fish poison but no records have yet been found.
fish poisons were used by the Aboriginal people but one would think it would be akin to using explosives to kill fish as smaller fish would also be impacted more than the big ones.
Toxins of the plant material in the form of alkaloids, saponins and tannins though extremely toxic to man the amount absorbed by the fish did not effect it edibility.
Plant material was pounded into shreds and thrown in the water and after a wait of an half an hour to a day fish would slowly suffocate and would be collected.
Some acacia barks that were rich in tannins were used in this process beside the common cork wood species.
Aboriginal people along the coast were very skilled at making canoe's out of the bark of large gum tree's my father told me that Iron bark (Eucalyptus crebra) was the best one. Large paper bark rafts were also very common in areas with lots of small estuaries of winding mangrove creeks.
They understood the way of spearing crabs and fish among the mangroves and for some reason Bowen has no crocodiles in the local Estuaries. One thinks there were but they were hunted out and eaten and the areas of water between north to Homehill Molongo creek area is deep and has large amounts of sharks for crocodiles to venture south and similar situation from north the rivers where we fished near half way to Proserpine.
Gloucester island a rocky outcrop with no permanent water and has no animals might have had People and animals before any great flood that would have slowly died out. The water passageways between the mainland are fairly deep and has very large tidal currents shifts that would have made many stranded prisoners Aboriginal and animal alike.
Sea levels from the Pleistocene really show the extra land that was available and there was no obvious signs of great floods till later in the Miocene as most of the preceding million years was one of ice age and droughts making a lot of the continent dry and uninhabitable so the coast lines would have been the most habitable and therefore the place to find any viable evidence on man.
The leaves were an important source of fibre after making more flexible by passing through fire and the spiny midrib removed they were plaited into mats, sieve bags, armlets, mat cloaks and sails for their primitive canoes. The young roots and middle inner stem from young plants were edible but probably only reserved for hard times.
Pandanus leaves were twined into bags the leaves stripped to long thin flat pieces.Twinning is weaving in which a system of vertical warp strands are held in place by wefts of horizontal strands The wefts are moved together, twisted as they go and locking a warp on each twist. Most bags could be made flexible, closely or open woven. Pandanus bags were used to strain food substances like crushed Cycad or macrozamia seeds sometimes just placed in running clean water would remove soluble toxins making a edible starch flour for crude bread cakes. Bags also used for sieving and storage of nardoo, wild rice, acacia seed, and other native grass seeds. Both Men and women were skilled in the manufacture of string for nets and mesh for making their own bags. String was also easily spun from types of hair fibres and were strong and very durable. Commenting on a variety of string backs in 1878 R Brough Smyth said that all their twine bags were very strong and well put together.
Fishing net were common with the larger tribes but
individual mesh traps much like a large butterfly half opened triangular structures were used the trap was made to close on chasing of the fish into it. Net making was very sophisticated and had multi-purpose uses from catching fish by scooping or Trapping and on land used for trapping birds or other game chased or escaping fire into them. In central Australia nets were made extremely strong by by combining sinew from Wallaby of Kangaroo into the twine.
Dilly bags were important item of the Woman food collector she needed a carry bag she could run with and be hanging by her side when climbing and retrieving precious honey comb from the bee hive's.
Men needed bags to carry small tools a belt and knife sheaths, the Witch doctor had one with fancy ornamental work to collect his herbs and animal parts for his curing portent's.
The seed pod of the Pandanus usually soft fleshy when first ripe with a very sweet taste it was multiple kernel with woody nut capsules the thickness of a match would need a lot of to be a main meal which would have been a lot of work to break open. The pods were broken in apart and put in the fire for a while to crack the hard inner to get the small almond tasting kernel. The flesh on the ripe orange seed pods had a considerable amount of sugar and starch in it and would have been helpful as an edible in extreme conditions. Dried kernels were ideal for fire transportation soldering slowly on a dirt covered tray. Most Aboriginal people were very skilled at the fire making process but it was always a much easier option to carry ones fire from camp to camp and if it was to be across river's the fire was put on some clay in a canoe. Slow burning materials were used like iron wood and bark, mulga bark , dried cones of Banksia and dried bracket fungi growths of tree's.
Large amounts of paperbark trees ( Melaluca agentia or
quininervia ) would have also been around the bush the inner bark when pieced length ways down the tree will produce drinkable survival water on hot day. Water was also sourced by digging the roots of eucalyptus and Bottletree sometimes were cut to tap the soft watery inside wood.
Well there along the edge of the scrub and the mangrove edge and a small sandy Islet, I found one granite long rock which had the base pointed. This is not a first with Aboriginal pick type rocks I have found numerous at other sites around Queensland obvious an important stone one like this probably took a long time to make.
The scrubs of the coast were much more versatile in food types than the West of the range areas of the east coast of Australia.
http://www.jbhawkinsantiques.com/uploads/articles/TasmanianAppleseedNecklacesAustraliana-PDF.pdf
http://www.npywc.org.au/tjanpi-desert-weavers/tjanpi-program/
White Cedar more of a coastal tree leaves were used as a fish toxin and the long straight hard timber mad good spear shafts and fishing rods.
This rock I believe was used to break pieces off the larger chunks of extrusive granite in the area the high silicon content of the Granite fault rock gave it hardness making it quite useful in carving all the other types of granite and monolithic type rock figures round the coast It may have been a marker stone but chisels were common tools made by all tribes
One can understand now why in the book the Living Stone age the tribe would always disintegrated into the bush to join other tribes once the markers stone or ceremonial stones were lost or taken. If this happened in all solid fault areas of rock which unlike gravel areas had no free boulder rock this type of stones would have been necessary for chipping other chunks of rocks to make hand axes spearheads knives and hammers or picks and without them food probably be harder to get which is pretty simple science. Not all parts of Australia gravel beds one million to forty thousand years ago lot was covered with snow or remnants of glaciers in the highlands. The Aboriginal people lived further out on what is now sea and eventually migrated up to higher where the glaciers had been. Little rock remained except for exposed fault rocks in lots of areas so the long rock would have been the most important stone to the tribe's survival as a pick to break small chips of the larger for axes and spearheads..
Other singular long rocks round this area seem scarce some guess could have been buried with white man disturbance but this one is the same structure as the granite rocks round the mangrove islet area this right angle carving of the rocks does not look like some erosion effect rather man made all large rocks round this area have some sort of carving activity, one has ochre that has been that embedded it has been there thousands of years. These rocks were obvious core rocks from which numerous artifacts over the hundreds of years had been made which could be an explanation for all the odd shaping not just the ordinary idea that heat of rock contracting and expanding did all this weird erosion.
In this area I believed Aboriginals lived before white man arrived and even after too as there is a 1800 black glass bottle dump area with numerous artifacts among the mud some of the glass has evidence of bi facing. There was in the 1920's a copper refinery and part of a township with boat ramp at Doughties creek maybe these areas are the dumps of that activity and as usual the Aboriginal people live of the Settlers dumps finding many of the with mans rubbish useful and easy to cut with than the available rocks.
The ground is littered at the now high tide exposure level of artifacts from your basic hand axes to spears heads. These artifact rocks didn't get washed here they are being exposed from the sediments of another age. This is likely the dump site of the 1920's Bowen copper refinery and first township and as with all towns in early Queensland had a lot of Aboriginal visitors to access resources better than what they had available.
Even as a child with my Grandfather and Father we raided the local dump and then we had competition from the Aboriginal people in the town. Bowen Museum has history of copper refinery in this area and this is the biggest patch of glass and bottles in the area all dating to that period.
Aboriginal people were skilled in the making of lines and nets from collected platted hair.
Near the Long rock area it self one can line up numerous hand axes and knife and spear points
Above seems to be a broken basic spear probably later used as a club stone.
Before the New settlers had arrived and many thousands of years before sea levels had risen these areas now beach were land, probably scrub with numerous foods from turkey to yams and able to sustain a large population of organised people enough to do such large amounts of work for ritual belief.
The Beach now it would have been much more protected and mangroves much thicker and likely a further way in past times. It would have been the main source of protein in the way of fish caught in stone organised traps at low tide crabs, periwinkles whelks large pipi's and other assorted mollusk.
The different types of razor shell and even pearl type shells would have disappeared with Pollution from the Copper refinery that was built on the mouth of this creek in the 1920's and just other degradation from Local use there was a boat ramp here in the 1960's
A Lone periwinkle these feed on slime and usually found on the roots of mangroves as a child my father and I collect buckets full of them boiled with some salt and attacked with a safety pin delicious food .
A much more older area of Aboriginal artifacts and sub-fossils has been exposed along the North heads beach the fossil one could date mainly to the Pleistocene and one would have to assume the artifacts also being in the same sediment, being fossil corals one would have to assume nearly Tertiary as that would have been the only time the ocean was higher than it is today .
Some people regard this as North heads or part of Kings beach to me North heads was the lighthouse island off shore, Pilot Point was the name my Father called this beach child many a fishing expedition was spent here one can never remember rocks being unearthed at top of beach back then it by memory was all sand up over the hill.
We have Numerous large sharpened granite structures same design and similar size the Doughty Creek Totem rocks.
http://www.paleoportal.org/index.php?globalnav=fossil_gallery§ionnav=search&taxon_id=&state_id=&period_id=8&assemblage_id=&last_section=search&p=2
Smaller stromatolites club stone and 450 million year black shale small axes or scrapers, other sharps which conform with very early man made rocks for me this would be early Miocene to late Tertiary. These artifacts would have to go into the side of the beach side mountain it would be interesting to know if Flagstaff hill has them right under neath .
Another Stromatolites club stone of the smaller variety.
At the end of the point there is much evidence of these artifacts stones being washed in to the ocean to latter become sand of future beaches if any.
Flagstaff mountain from above the beach yet once 70,000 years to 40,000 thousand years ago there was probably land all around out where there is now ocean. Back further in the Pleistocene with only patches of ocean with shallow coral reefs further out.
The same fossil corals and Brachipod shells as the beach with now only mangrove swamps which would have been some what deep elevation since modern day #holocene sedimentation
Towards rose bay and Mother bedocks rock and its primitive rock monolithic carving would itself been on another island with high probability.
Flagstaff hummock is all soil marker stones all down to the other ancient artifacts it is hard to imagine the amount of tool work and why there is so much sediment, how many millions of years ?
Coastal Corkwood or batwing coral tree a remnant left remaining after subdivision of once eucalyptus woodland.
Solitary coral mixed with Fenstilena coral from the Tertiary period some 65 million years back
Solitary corals joined together.
Jurassic to Cretaceous
Scleractinian coral, Brain Coral.
Rugose Solitary coral evolved in the Devonian and went extinct around 65 million years ago.
Colonial coral, Monotastrea species
http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0339
Bryzoan Stemmed coral
Colonial Coral, Monotastrea annularis .
Colonial Species Devonian / Permian and extinct at the beginning of the Cretaceous period .
The above shells are shards of Eurydesma which would have gone extinct in the Tertiary Period so one could then classify the latter coral species as Tertiary.
Typical Lamp shell an articulated Brachipodia design.
( Saxostrea commercialis ), Tessellated cone ( conus tessulatus ),
Eyed Cowry ( Cypraea argus), Red Cowry ( Cypraea helvola), Murex Pecten, Large oyster, Helmut shell, left middle Cats eye periwinkle, various Bivalve mollusks along bottom. Some of these one could date tertiary and others more recent as with the collection below.
Golden lipped Oyster ( Pinctada maxima )
From top left The Prickly Purple (Thias Echinata ) ,
Marble cone ( Conus marmoreus) , Giant Clam
( Tridacna gigas), Spider shell ( Lambis scorpus), LH branched Murex ( Chicoreus ramosus ), center Exquisite Harp
( Austroharpa puncttata ), Cat's eye welk, Difstaff Spindle ( Fusinus cotus ).
Trochus maculatus upper right, Left, Winding Star Volema ( Volegalea wardiana ) reef whelk, Queen Scallop( Equichlamys bifrons ) lower right.
Marbled Volute Cymbiolista hunteri, and Tiger Cowry Cypraea tigris.
Chambered Nautalis ( Nautilus pompilius)
Cephalopod other species a squid octopus and cuttlefish, The Nautilus is a bottom feeder preys on crabs other small shellfish and can be lured into traps set among reef and rocks.
Varied Ear shell abalone ( Haliotis varia )
Razor Oyster shell
Any of large collection of different Molluscan shells would have been source of food for coastal Aboriginal people and most likely used as items in everyday life, and trade economy item's to barter with inland people's. The rivers were considered primary trading points for most tribes and temporary barriers between others much as were the steep mountain ranges only the strongest and bravest of hunters ventured to confront their inland cousins but for time's of ceremony and trade and this was forward messages by painted people carrying etched message sticks.
The Aboriginal artifact display Bowen Museum.
These two photographs are of Aboriginal fish traps the rocks were carried a long distance from shore and put in these patterns to trap the fish on the outgoing tide. These areas probably don't exist anymore my Father took these photographs many years before the Abbott point coal port was built so now a days could be just dredge waste somewhere on the reef .
This link leads to many a possibilities of now being a series of close to travel between islands that formed a land bridge all away from Africa to Australia or rather long coast lines of people everywhere with it now all under water how will we really ever really know even of America they have found submerged indian buildings a long way of the coast.
some brief evidence set by scientist of mans history not all I would agree with but a set public standard.
4 million year ago earliest human ancestors had been recorded in Africa going on fossils found 1.5 million hears later evidence of humans first using fire. 100,000 years ago modern man existed in Africa and Asia. The first Australians arrive in Australia 50,000 years ago and make their way across the country to the southeast by 40,000 years. First Ochre was used as bodily decoration 32,000 years ago and evidence of Ceremonial funerary rites being used at lake Mungo.
Neanderthals have disappeared from Europe 30,000years ago and only modern man remains.
23,000 years ago the sea had receded and first people's had reached Tasmania, the whole continent is sparsely populated. 20,000 years in the Northern hemisphere people start to move into North America. 18,000 years the ice age is at it coldest and most of Tasmania is cover with ice and there are small glaciers in the Snowy Mountains. Tasmania becomes an Island again at 13,000 years Aboriginal people were using Boomerangs and in the Middle east Agriculture is first practised and animals domesticated. Sea levels rose between 800 and 900 years ago separating kangaroo Island and New Guinea from the Australian main land. in the northern Hemisphere Britain becomes and island and the Bering straight is opened up and people in Asia start to use metals as tools.
Around 5000 and 6000 years ago the first wheel was used in Mesoptamia , large cities were built and people used the alphabet to write. In Australia the Diptrotodon was becoming extinct 4000 years ago evidence of Dingo arriving in Australia. Aboriginal were using finely finished lightweight tools.
3000 years ago southern Tasmanian Aboriginal people were using paper bark boats for seal hunting, use of hooks and lines . Back in the northern Hemisphere they had built the Pyramids made Iron tools and weapons and built the Great wall of China by 2000 years. 2016 years ago Jesus Christ is born, Australian climate is bit similar to todays but probably wetter, probably never seen so many drought till the arrival of white man. 1600 years ago Europe is over run by the barbarian Huns and down south the 200 year later the Maoris had reached new Zealand . In Australia in Victoria Aboriginal people were building stone house in small towns and farming eels.
Evidence of Indonesian fisherman reaching the coast lines up north some 500 years , Columbus discover America some fifty years later Dutch sailors reach the western coast of Australia.
Abel Tasman maps the east coast of Australia. then year.
1770 captain James Cook arrives sails up the east coast of Australia.
1788 the first fleet arrives.
