Located by four bushwalkers in October 1995, the Eagles Reach rock art site in Wollemi National Park was investigated eight years later (in May 2003) by a team of archaeologists and Darkingung, Dharug and Wiradjuri Aboriginal people. While other Wollemi National Park rock art sites had been recorded previously, the discovery of Eagles Reach overturned the long‑held belief that the Wollemi interior was rarely used by Aboriginal people. It revealed a major cultural landscape and triggered multiple, systematic searches that located over a hundred more occupation and art sites in this remote area.
Despite the abundance of many Aboriginal art sites in the region, the Eagles Reach find, which is located about 160 kilometres northwest of Sydney in the wilderness section of the Wollemi National Park, is regarded as the biggest and most significant discovery in the last 50 years.
A major discovery of Aboriginal cave paintings in Australia
Eagles Reach has 206 individual motifs in total: 166 drawings, 39 stencils and one painting, whch are arranged in twelve superimposed layers. In terms of number of motifs, the site is the ninth largest of over 5,000 known sites from the Greater Sydney Basin – Blue Mountains Area – and the fourth largest based on the number of drawings (only Swintons Cave, Upside Down Man Cave and Spirits Rock have more drawings).
If we compare Eagle’s Reach to outstanding sites elsewhere – in terms of preservation, number of motifs, number of image layers, range of subject matter, nature of subject matter, contemporary indigenous significance – it ranks among the best across Australia.
Assessment of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Values of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
The site gets its name from a prominent, large, and detailed painting of a mythical eagle-like creature holding a hafted hatchet in one hand. Likely to be represent a deity, Evan Yanna Muru describes it as “one of the representations of the sky boss, Baiame” (Sacred Wollemi).
The main eagle depiction originally was drawn in charcoal, then had white artefact stencils placed over the wings. It later was re-outlined in white, with piercing eyes added. The result is a powerful image of a key Ancestral Being. The oldest part of the eagle, in charcoal, may be as much as 1600 years of age. The white outline is recent, perhaps added only 150 – 200 years ago.
Rediscovering Aboriginal Wollemi
Birds and bird-human composite figures are one of the most common motifs in Wollemi rock art sites comprising on average just over 30% of the total drawing, but at Eagles Reach they are almost 60% of the drawings: “an unusually large percentage of bird-related imagery in several layers of the rock art” (Tacon et al, 2006).
Eagles Reach is also known for its range of Wollemi fauna, many drawn with accurate detail, including kangaroos, wallabies, goannas and leaf-tail geckoes.
Many of the animals are in charcoal, but they are also drawn in white (the white outlining being added much later), including an uncommon white outline wombat.
Other unusual motifs are therianthropes: animal-headed beings with human bodies, drawn in charcoal (only a few other sites with painted “animal-headed beings with human bodies” have been found in the Greater Sydney region; one just to the north of Eagles Reach and a few to the east). An international survey of nearly 5,000 examples of rock art across northern Australia, Europe and South Africa indicated that therianthropes represented only about 1-4% of the works studied.
While therianthropes are very special depictions found across Australia, and in several regions overseas, the bird-headed creatures are a very rare find in the Sydney area. In Egypt such animal-headed figures are depicted as gods.
A major discovery of Aboriginal cave paintings in Australia
Near these therianthropes is a grid-like motif, also uncommon in greater Sydney (there is one on the Central Coast at the Kulnura Hand Stencils and Boomerangs Shelter which may represent a basket); in Central Queensland rock art they are far more common, and have been described both as Zamia fruit (an important source of food for the Aboriginal people) and as fishing nets. Archaeologist Wayne Brennan describes the figure as being a map, which represents the location of important sites in the area.
Near one of the kangaroos is a detailed drawing of a lyrebird feather, another very unusual motif.
Many of the figures are outlined in white – which is fairly common in Sydney-Hawkesbury Basin rock art shelters.
The rock art at Eagles Reach is thought to be up to 5,000-6000 years old: the oldest motifs being the red and a dark yellow stencils, and the oldest charcoal drawings being are at least 1600 years old.
Although we will never understand the full meaning of the many unusual motifs of Eagles Reach, the site is thought to be located near the informal boundaries of three tribes, and to have been an important meeting place for the Darkingjung, Wiradjuri and Dharug people (and possibly two more tribes) as they journeyed across the Wollemi.
Although the rock art resembles that produced by Darkingjung people at other sites more than that of other groups, it appears that Wiradjuri and Darug people also visited and made stencils if not drawings at the site. Indeed, the site is located near the boundary or junction of the traditional territory of these three groups. The site may have been an important stop when journeying across the Wollemi, it may have been a meeting place and it likely had many spiritual associations given the large number of depictions of Ancestral Beings.
Each time a group visited stories were likely told, more images were added and the history of the place became richer. Unfortunately, we will never know the details of the site’s use nor the wonderful stories that must have been told about it. However, because of the stone artefacts and hand stencils of all sizes, including those of children, it appears the site was not restricted to men, women or knowledgeable elders. Instead it is likely family groups camped briefly at the site, sometimes leaving new rock art behind in the process.
Assessment of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Values of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
More information on Eagles Reach
- Rediscovering Aboriginal Wollemi
- Susan Allan – A major discovery of Aboriginal cave paintings in Australia in World Socialist Web Site
- Tacon et al – Assessment of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Values of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
- Ken Eastwood and Ian Brown – Sacred Wollemi [PDF]
Wayne Brennan and Paul Tacon explain the significance of Eagles Reach (as well “Firestick Cave” and Gallery Rock) in this video.
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