Mount William's Quarry

Case Study Report on the use of Laws and Policies to Protect Indigenous People’s Rights and Heritage.

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The period that marked late Holocene characterized expansion of woodlands in Eastern Australia. Following this, the Aboriginal group who resided in the same area adapted ground-edged stone hatchets as a crucial tool. The tool was not only confined to utilitarian activities such as cutting down trees or slaughtering large animals but also attached to prestige, highly- valued traded item and used in ceremonial activities. The Aboriginal people obtained raw materials for making this tool from a particular quarry; The Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry. (Hiscock, 2013)

The location of the famous Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry is around 60 kilometres to the Northwest of Melbourne, close to the town of Lancefield in Central Victoria. Specifically, it is located in the extreme north of The Mount William Range on a ridgeline that stretches to the northeastern part of Mount William. The quarry’s boundary is close to 18 hectares in the Southern part occupying approximately ten hectares; ILC is in possession of eight hectares while the remaining two hectares recognized as a private land just like the unfenced northern end of the quarry. Initially, the quarry was endowed with Dry Sclerophyll forest that later became cleared following long periods of human activities. The most significant of these human activities is the evident surface and underground mining. The depth of the quarry is several metres and has 268 shafts and pits. Also, it has thirty-four different areas of production that are evidently sites where shaping of stones into hatchet head blanks took place. (AUSTRALIAN HERITAGE COUNCIL, 2009)

Despite the Australia being endowed with many quarries including the Ngilipitji in East Arnhem Land, the Mount...