A spectacular Aboriginal shelter in Yengo National Park, Yengo 1 (which is situated next to Yengo 2) has art (stencils, paintings and engravings) as well as grinding grooves and occupation deposit. Both shelters were excavated and extensively documented by Jo McDonald in 1987/88 – and they are believed to be the oldest in NSW. Both sites were named after the Aboriginal term “Yengo”, which is said to mean “mountain” – Mount Yengo is the highest peak in this area and was sacred to the Aboriginal people.
The easterly-facing Yengo 1 shelter measures 14m x 6m x 1.9m and has just over 500 motifs in stencils, paintings and drawings in white, red, yellow, pink and black pigment – the second largest assemblage recorded in the Sydney Basin. (Swinton’s Cave has the largest number of motifs.)
The predominant motifs in Yengo 1 are hand stencils, with numerous variations (hand and arm, hand and wrist, finger manipulations) in multiple pigments:
- white (73%)
- yellow (10.1%)
- black and red (4.9% each)
Stencilling is the predominant technique at Yengo 1 (82.9%), followed by engraving (7.1%), drawing (5.8%) and painting (3.6%).
| Motif | Red | White | Black | Yellow | Engraved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropomorph | 1 | 1 | |||
| Emu | 1 | ||||
| Eel | 1 | ||||
| Boomerang | 2 | ||||
| Axe | 8 | 2 | |||
| Hand | 14 | 277 | 9 | 49 | |
| Hand Variant | 2 | 49 | 2 | ||
| Bird Track | 2 | 1 | |||
| Roo Track | 5 | ||||
| Circle | 30 | ||||
| CXNF | 2 | 2 | |||
| Other | 8 | 1 | |||
| Lines | 9 | 21 | 9 | ||
| 25 | 371 | 25 | 51 | 36 |
Stencils
Of the 402 hand stencils (and hand variants), 237 of them could be measured and the majority were left hands (145). They range are mostly adult hands, with a small number (4.2%) of infant hand stencils. There are eight black stencilled hands, which are uncommon.
While most of the hand stencils have the fingers splayed normally, there are a number of stencil variations involving the stencilling of wrist and/or arm, as well as finger manipulations (‘mutilated hands’).
Prints (or positive stencils) are rare in this region: Yengo 1 has four hand prints (one yellow and three
tan).
There are eight stencils of axes: 8 in white and 2 in black, amongst the hand stencils.
Figurative art
Figurative motifs include two anthropomorphs, an emu and an eel (only 5.8% of the art consists of drawings) – although it’s very hard to see what they represent. (In comparison, Yengo 2 contains mostly drawings and paintings.)
Yengo 1 engravings
A rock at the front of the shelter has a complex pattern of weathered pecked circles.
The large boulder contains bird and macropod tracks as well as engraved circles – there are 36 figures in total.
Yengo 1 Axe Grinding Grooves
There are a total of 56 axe grinding grooves, most of them in a large cluster at the southern end of the shelter, and a small number along a low shelf at the back of the overhang.
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Yengo 1 occupation deposit
Approximately 1.6 cubic metres of deposit was excavated, yielding 10,100 artefacts, over two digs conducted by Jo McDonald (in 1987 and 1988).
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