Cultural Significance & Knowledge
This vital resource not only ensured Aboriginal peoples’ survival but also shaped language boundaries, ceremonial sites, and cultural identity.
Water
Aboriginal peoples followed these animals—including zebra finches and pardalotes—to locate water in deserts.
Birds
Large leaves were shaped into bowls overnight to gather this form of moisture.
Dew
These springs, formed by carbonated water depositing lime, create distinctive raised features.
Mound Springs
Despite colonisation and land clearing, evidence of these practices can still be found today.
Aboriginal water management practices
These traditional narratives explain the creation and ongoing supply of water sources such as rivers, creeks, and springs.
Dreaming stories
The seasonal movements of these creatures could lead Aboriginal trackers directly to water.
Animals
These shallow depressions in hard sediments filled with rainwater but evaporated quickly.
Claypans
These open entries into fractured rock aquifers were protected with slabs and branches.
Rock wells
Over the last 200 years, many scar trees and carvings pointing to water sources have been lost because of this.
Land clearing and farming
Adults taught children about water sources during these journeys, ensuring survival knowledge was passed down.
Travels along chains of water sources
The presence of certain birds, animals, and plants was a key indicator of this.
Nearby water sources
These are holes dug into permeable sediments, often found in dry riverbeds, to access water.
Soaks
This amphibian was dug up, squeezed for its stored water, then carefully reburied.
Water-holding frog
This large underground water system feeds many mound springs in Queensland.
Great Artesian Basin
Aboriginal peoples marked water sources with scar trees, carvings, and this form of symbolic communication.
Artwork
These naturally occurring or man-made hollows in rock collected and stored water.
Rock Holes
Water stored in the roots of these trees, when cut open, could flow freely
Mallee eucalypts
Clumps of this small green plant could be drained for moisture and then put back.
Moss
Artwork and carvings on trees sometimes lasted this long and served as guides to water.
Thousands of years
These markers not only pointed to water but also showed custodianship and visitor responsibilities.
environmental markers or signposts
These were used to dig clay for dam construction.
Wooden tools
These carved wooden or bark vessels were used to carry collected water.
Coolamons
Water could also collect in these natural tree features caused by decay.
Tree Trunk Hollows
Covering rock holes with branches or slabs prevented this natural process.
Evaporation