America Bay Fishing Scene

Summary: An Aboriginal engraving site below the America Bay Track, which may represent a fishing scene.

  • Site type: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 5
  • Motif/s: Basket, Fish, Shield
  • Condition of site: Weathered
  • View site sketch
  • Year first recorded: 1946
  • Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy
  • McCarthy reference: BROKEN BAY Group 51 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • McCarthy in Mankind Vol 5, No. 1 (1954) Group 51. Fig 2C (p.51)

Below the America Bay Track, next to a large rock platform covered with scattered stones, is a smaller platform which contain a small number of weathered engravings. (Two sites were originally recorded in this area, but in comparing them they both refer to the same set of engaved figures.)

AWAT5013 LR America Bay Fishing Scene

The site was originally recorded by McCarthy who described a circle, three fish and a shield. He suggested the site represented “casual art depicting a catch of fish, with the fisherman’s shield, and his camp or gnarl container”.

The three fish – one originally described as a leatherjacket and later as a “bream-like fish” are all shaped differently, and are all quite weathered.

  • AWAT4996 LR America Bay Fishing Scene
  • AWAT5028 LR America Bay Fishing Scene
  • AWAT5043 LR America Bay Fishing Scene

A small circle may represent the fisherman’s basket or container.

AWAT5010 LR America Bay Fishing Scene
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