Petrified Wood Dominant Lithic Assemblages in Australia

[DC]

Hi All,

Does anyone know of any petrified wood lithic assemblages in Australia, especially NSW but anywhere on our continent would be wonderful. Any papers or knowledge about an assemblage's name/ location etc would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Diana.

[Nic Dolby]

Working with Simon Holdaway at Stud Crreek (near Tibooborra, far NW
NSW)). The assemblage had almost no petrified wood, but nearby on the
gibber plains there was abundant petrified wood, and most pieces of it
had flakes knocked off them. In fact it was difficult to find a piece
that was not modified. It was if almost evey piece had been 'tested'
and rejected.
Nic Dolby

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Nic Dolby
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[tessa corkill]

Hi Diana
There is petrified wood in many Sydney region assemblages but I don't know any where it is 'dominant'. I know a number of locations/sources around Sydney where it occurs in geological formations if you are interested.
Tessa Corkill

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[tessa corkill]

Hi Nic

I don't want to sound too sceptical but how sure is it that the petrified wood is purposefully flaked, rather than broken some other way?

Tessa

On 27 January 2016 at 10:17, Nic Dolby <nicd...@gmail.com> wrote:

Working with Simon Holdaway at Stud Crreek (near Tibooborra, far NW
NSW)). The assemblage had almost no petrified wood, but nearby on the
gibber plains there was abundant petrified wood, and most pieces of it
had flakes knocked off them. In fact it was difficult to find a piece
that was not modified. It was if almost evey piece had been 'tested'
and rejected.
Nic Dolby

On 1/22/16, DC <diana...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
> Does anyone know of any petrified wood lithic assemblages in Australia,
> especially NSW but anywhere on our continent would be wonderful. Any papers
>
> or knowledge about an assemblage's name/ location etc would be most
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Diana.

 Hi Diana
There is petrified wood in many Sydney region assemblages but I don't know any where it is 'dominant'. I know a number of locations/sources around Sydney where it occurs in geological formations if you are interested.
Tessa Corkill

>

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[Eleanor Crosby]

Yes, Tessa, ditto for the Gold Coast area (Logan - Tweed)
Eleanor

[pat gaynor]

Hi Diana

There is also an abundant of petrified wood around Gunnedah but was very seldom used according the stone artefact analyses i have done over the years. It is inclined to be layered, coarse grained and would hinge out in many cases when knapped. Those few i have seen in assemblages are on the way to be 'opalised', in other words, the material is much smoother and would flake much better than  the majority of pieces that I have seen lying around. It would be on the bottom of list of desirable knapping material as far as i am concerned if you have chert, chalcedony, cherty argillite, hornfels, jasper, quartz or quartzite to choose from. I would rather knapp quartz with all it inherent qualities any day than try to get some useable material out of the local petrified wood.

regards

pat gaynor

[Sheahan Bestel]

Hi Nic and others,

What type of wood is the NSW petrified stuff? Has anyone been able to date or locate the geological formation it is coming from?

Sheahan Bestel

Department of Archaeology

University of Exeter

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From: oza...@googlegroups.com <oza...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Eleanor Crosby <e.cr...@turnix.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 27 January 2016 1:58 AM
To: oza...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: {OzArch} Petrified Wood Dominant Lithic Assemblages in Australia

 

[Maurizio Campanelli]

Dear all,

Please have a look at Attenbrow, V. (2010). Sydney's Aboriginal Past: investigating the archaeological and historical records. Unsw Press.

Petrified wood has also been found in western Victoria (e.g. report 4674: 50).

Best,

M.

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

 

 

Hello Sheahan,

 

 

I have webpages on silicified wood if you are interested in details.

 

There are two main ages for such in East Aus:

 

1)  Permian (which includes standing forest burial and silicification under volcanic ash falls).

 

2)   Tertiary, including for all or most silcrete found within the Sydney Region.

 

As far as I am aware nobody has ever found any piece of the silicified wood that is widespread around Sydney in situ in any geological formation that it might possibly have formed in.

 

Possibly reworked pieces might occur in the ferruginous gravels of the St. Marys Formation .. but I know of no case even for that much having been confirmed.

 

Around Sydney, silicified wood is generally found in places where silcrete (which is very much more common) is also found.

 

So far as known to date, silcrete NEVER outcrops around Sydney, so where it formed is also a mystery still ... Often the silcrete is in rounded clasts, sometimes with the surface of such bearing in places a very fine polish; and sometimes marked by crescentic impact marks where something (powerful water?) has thrown one cobble/boulder against another.

 

Silcrete is sacred to a very small (and now near extinct) tribe of Sydney geologists (the 'LachlanHunters', but that might not be the name in their own language?).  

 

Unfortunately silcret has not been held to be so sacred by the Councils of the Cumberland Plain (area between Sydney and the face of the Blue Mountains).   Very regretfully, they plus the State Government routinely allow thousands and thousand of homes, to house Greater Sydney's population explosion, to be built over the sacred silcrete lands (i.e. places known as Plumpton Ridge, Ropes Crossing, Twin Creeks, Upper Castlereagh, etc.) ..... all without one single thought ever given by them to geoheritage.   

 

Of course, building big new dense-housing estates, or new mini-suburbs, does this:

 

1)   Removes all the trees (or most of them), and 

2)   Massively disturbs the "original surface".

 

During (2), the silcrete commonly gets to be either taken away, or gets buried under massive amounts of new soil imported.

 

Thus the original silcrete rarely just sits there undisturbed to end up in front gardens.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dr John Byrnes

 

St. Ives

 

 

 

 

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[pat gaynor]

HI SHEAHAN

Petrified wood could come from different geological formations depending where it is found. For it to occur, like coal vegetation it has to be buried, but unlike coal it has gone further in as much as the carbon in the wood is replaced by silica, but generally the structure still looks the same but of course it is stone. The petrified wood here in the Gunnedah area seems to located near coal bearing areas and the coal is Permian in age, so i am guessing it was originally a forest in about that time.

Regards 

Pat Gaynor

[pat gaynor]

Hi Shearan

Just to give you some sort of an idea what a piece might look like and they vary in colour and size a lot, here is a lump I use for a doorstop.

Regards

Pat Gaynor

[Nic Dolby]

Tessa, I understand and share your scepticism. They were on a gibber
plain with kangaroo paths, so there may be some movement and breakage.
Some had multiple flaking that appeared systematic, that appeared
human. But I do am not a stone-expert enough to be confident in this
analysis. "Further research would be valuable..."
Nic

[Nic Dolby]

Shehan, I looked at it briefly, it was gymosperm, I suspect
Auracariaceae. I don't remember the geology, the location was near
Stud Creek, NW NSW, and near the Parks Mount Wood homestead in the
Sturt National Park. And I apologise for misspelling Tibooburra

Nic Dolby
nicd...@gmail.com

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hi Nic,

 

I've told this story set on the gibber plains of western NSW many times before ... but maybe not here?

I'm a "believer in artefacts" - I even much believe in pot-lidding which even finest specimens of such some (geos) would pass over without as much as second thought - perhaps not even a first thought(?).  

But years ago many, or maybe even most, of the exploration company geologists in Western NSW were not believers.

One uses to say "artefacts phooey - that stuff is EVERYwhere"; and he used to say he would bet anybody better than even money that they could drive out with him onto the plain, and "stop wherever you like", and then "within five minutes I'll be finding for you the stuff that archaeologists call arefacts".

But of course geologists can be VERY sceptical, and still many do not believe in man-made climate change .. one of the dozens of such disbelievers having just passed away very recently, Dr. Bob Carter.

Cheers,

 

 

John

 

 

 

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello,

Mount Woods used to have the governess's hut or something behind the house made into a museum didn't it?

Is that still there?

And somewhere not too far away a monstrous silicified log lay on the gibber plain.

I saw it a long time ago.

Presumed to have come out of the weathered-away Jurassic.

I'd really appreciate a pic of that log if anyone has one .. as I have misplaced all of my photos from NW NSW.

Cheers,

 

John

 

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[jko...@netspeed.com.au]

This query got me curious and I looked up my copy of Mary E White's "Time in Our Hands: Semi-precious Gemstones" (1991). 

On p. 120 there is an illustration of "rock types ... used by Tasmanian Aborigines in making artefacts".One such is described as being "made from petrified wood".

Julian O'Dea

Canberra

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[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Thanks Julian,

What type/size of artefact did she illustrate made out of petrified wood?

Below are ones from New Mexico.

 

Cheers,

 

John 

Silicified wood artefacts, New Mexico

 

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[jko...@netspeed.com.au]

John

I am emphatically not an expert.

It is darker than those and a different shape. But what little I know makes me think it has been worked and was what she said. If I had to guess, I would call it a scraper. It has striations on or through it.

As I say, not an expert. The book should be easy to find. It was a popular coffee-table style publication. Reed Books, Sydney, NSW.

The lady herself might still be alive. She wrote a lot on plant fossils too.

Julian

 

On Friday 29/01/2016 at 3:16 pm, john...@ozemail.com.au wrote:

 

Thanks Julian,

What type/size of artefact did she illustrate made out of petrified wood?

Below are ones from New Mexico.

 

Cheers,

 

John 

[ Image ]

[ Image ]

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[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Thanks Julian,

I know Mary and am almost certain she is still alive.

I will try and check.

Cheers,

 

John

 

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[Diana Cowie]

Thank you all so much for your input, tips and advice on petrified/ silicified wood to date - lets keep the conversation and insight sharing etc going. When we finish this post-exc, we hope to share it in some form with you too (subject to client approval).

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[Michael Lever]

I know I'm late to the party, but just came across this (rather dated text) and recalled this thread.

Mitchell, S.R. 1949: Stone-Age Craftsmen. Stone Tools and Camping Places of the Australian Aborigines.  Tait Book Co. Pty. Ltd. Melbourne.

P92:

"Silicified Wood was used for tools on the south coast of  New South Wales, where it is found as river pebbles and beach shingle, derived from the Permo-Carboniferous rocks of the area, more particularly at Bellambi and Bulli. Retaining, in a large measure, a splintery fracture due to the original grain of the wood, it has produced elongate flakes suitable for making the asymmetrical points characteristic of this coast. Attempts to fracture silicified wood across the grain have, however, proved unsatisfactory...."

P199, (in describing lithics of the Lake Illawarra, NSW):

"One large core is of petrified wood, measuring 110mm. in length, 80mm. in width and 50mm. in thickness...taper to a pointed apex"

Cheers,

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello,

 

Very interesting to know, Michael,

Did I miss anything earlier or is this then the first-noted case of it definitely being used for stone tools in NSW?

I'd earlier sent note of such usage overseas.

BTW ..  one is never too late re silcrete .. it is *always* on the boil, and of interest to someone or another.

Kind Regards,

 

John Byrnes

 

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Re: {OzArch} Petrified Wood Dominant Lithic Assemblages in Australia

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[Neville Baker]

OK, so I'm really late to the party, but attached is a picture of the silicified wood artefacts from Bellambi in the Australian Museum.  These were collected from the dune field south of Bellambi Aboriginal Place north of Wollongong NSW. The Etheridge and Whitelegge 1907 and McCarthy 1943 papers are relevant. I'm doing an ACHA report on Bellambi at the moment with Sydney Water Corporation, so I have a head full of this stuff.

 

I've also spent a couple of decades analysing assemblages from the Cumberland Plain and Hunter Valley and have consistently found a very small proportion of silicified wood artefacts.  I collected a large petrified wood cobble from the Hunter River gravels once and expect more may be found, although not common.

 

cheers

Neville Baker

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Golly,

 

They were really into it eh .. !!?

Somebody (I think Tessa or if not then I forget who) alerted me that there is/was a big concentration of beach worn silicified wood at the southern end of North Wollongong beach .. and therein starts another story on search for a petrified standing-stumps forest directly west from there - at the escarpment.

Re:  "I've also spent a couple of decades analysing assemblages from the Cumberland Plain" .... we were gunna meet about all that at Muru Mittigar .. right?

Please just set a time and I'll be there.

Put it (time to meet) here because there was someone else on this list who previously she might be interested in a silcrete discussion meeting at Castlereagh .. the home of the biggies, silcrete- wise.

Cheers,

 

John Byrnes

 

My web:   https://someinterestingsites.wordpress.com    (more on dinosaurs than silcrete right at the moment)

Email :   john...@ozemail.com.au

Postal:   PO Box 121, BURWOOD 1805

 

 

 

 

 

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{OzArch} Re: Petrified Wood Dominant Lithic Assemblages in Australia

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