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Kim Akerman
head and lashing the two ends together, compressing the head between
them. Softened beeswax, prepared by mixing it with pounded charcoal or
one of several plant exudates, may be placed around the head prior to tying
off the helve. In this region hafting adhesives were derived from either the
mountain bloodwood tree (Eucalyptus dichromophloia); the white cypress pine,
Callitris columellaris; and the porcupine grass or spinifex (Triodia pungens).
Pecking as a means of shaping axes is rare and appears to be restricted to
archaic examples, which may also be grooved to facilitate hafting (Dortch,
C.E. 1977a
resins and other adhesives and operational dynamics in detail.
2. Grinding and pounding stones
Seed grinding was not a major activity in this area and, unlike other regions,
deliberately fashioned grindstones were not made. Suitable slabs or pieces of
the introduction of metals, iron spearheads and tomahawks. Ochre grinding
was a also major function and small grooved grindstones were used to shape
platforms are common only in the eastern area of this zone.
Pounding stones (mortars and pestles – for general terminology relating
food and resource materials. Some fruits were pounded prior to being eaten;
others such as the toxic fruit of Cycas media were hulled prior to leaching
and subsequent cooking. In some instances, cooked meat and bones were
pounded to a pulp prior to being eaten, especially by the very young or the
elderly. Some native tobaccos were prepared for chewing by pounding and
both avian and vegetal down was prepared for ceremonial use by being
pounded with ochre of the required colour. Pounding stones consisted of
the object or substance being worked and a rounded river cobble of the same
material that was used unhafted as a hammer. There is little evidence to sug
gest that the butt end of the stone axe was used as a hammer or pounder in
this area and, unlike the situation in some other areas of Australia, axeheads
themselves do not seem to have been used as anvils or hammerstones.
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