Finchley Aboriginal Site

Summary: The signposted Finchley cultural walk provides access to the Finchley Aboriginal Site, considered one of the best Aboriginal engraving sites in Australia.

Art type/s: Rock engraving
Number of sites: 4
Number of motifs: 137
Motif/s: Bird Track, Daramulan, Emu, Emu Track, Koala, Lines, Man, Mundoe (foot)
Quality: 4.5/5
View site sketch
Year first recorded: 1966
Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy, Ian Sim
McCarthy reference: YANGO McDonald River District Group 17 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
Ian Sim, Occasional Papers Aboriginal Studies in Mankind Vol 7, No 1. 1966. Plate 6E-6G
National Parks (NPWS) – Finchley Cultural Walk
Sydney Rock Art – Finchley

The Finchley Aboriginal Site includes over 100 figures, including ancestral beings and an “emu woman”. There are four sites in close proximity.

engraving Finchley Finchley Aboriginal Site

One of the sites (Series 1) was thought to represent a “koala totemic site visited by ancestral beings consisting of a large hermaphrodite, a man and a boy”. The ancestral being or anthropomorph below is holding a sword club.

Another site (Series 3) consists of “two hunting compositions, emu and kangaroo, with the tracks of the animals but not of the hunters; the profile figure is probably a magician singing the emus”.

More information on Finchley Aboriginal Site

The Finchley Cultural Walk in Yengo National Park is accessible via the Yango Creek Road (from Wollombi or Laguna) then Upper Yango Creek Road, Finchley Track past Finchley Lookout and finally the Yango Track. These unsealed roads, but suitable for 2WD unless it’s very wet.

There are also Aboriginal tours, that provide more of an insight into the indigenous culture and engravings.