Summary: A small shelter which has very unusual Aboriginal drawings, as well as stencils. There are grinding grooves nearby.

The intriguing Golden Boomerang Cave contains a number of unusual figures, as well as hand stencils.

The cave gets it’s name from a reddish-yellow ochre boomerang on the wall of the shelter.

The boomerang is held by a partial human figure, which is drawn in white (outlined below as it’s hard to see in the original photo).

1X3A7355 Golden Boomerang Cave1X3A7355 enhanced Golden Boomerang Cave

To the right are another two stylised human figures: “a prone figure with leg raised, apparently at the ankle by a dominant male figure… The human figures wear waist and arm bands, with criss-cross lines on the chest reminiscent of the V-shaped body painting of Sydney Aborigines”.

1X3A7382 Golden Boomerang Cave1X3A7382 lwe Golden Boomerang Cave

The right hand figure has “exaggerated buttocks”, which is very similar to those documented at the Red Hands Cave.

Superimposed on the human figures are at least five hand stencils, and some additional reddish-yellow motifs that don’t appear natural.

While the Golden Boomerang Cave is regarded as a genuine Aboriginal rock art site, Blue Mountains historian Eugene Stockton claims on the basis of the unusual style of the human drawings: “It is not considered authentic by archaeologists of the National Parks and Wildlife Service but is published here in case similar examples come to light, just as the Wandjini and Mimi paintings were not at first accepted until subsequent finds established these as distinctive Aboriginal art styles”. This has been largely debunked, with other similar figures having being found in the area.

Along the creek bed near the Golden Boomerang Cave is a small set of axe grinding grooves.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to Hiking the World, and receive notifications of new posts by email. (A hike is added every 1-2 weeks, on average.)

Join 637 other subscribers

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Aboriginal Sites by National Park

Located to the north-west of Sydney, just south of the Dharug and Yengo National Parks, Maroota has a high concentration of (known) Aboriginal sites. Many more Aboriginal heritage sites are located in the Marramarra National Park. The original inhabitants of the area were the Darug people.