As the drought digs its feet in and any predicted rain evaporates from the forecasts before it hits the ground, the scartrees endure. Some trees have been trashed in wild wind squalls but the significant widespread erosion is exposing many old campsites and artefacts as well. The scalded flats are being peeled back as topsoil is blown away leaving hollows littered with the flakes and fragments of foreign stone. There is no natural rock here so the variety and quantity of the different chips & chunks of stone is remarkable. The trees in these areas are always heavily scarred and the clay oven balls are scattered around like red mushrooms in some apocalyptic film set. The remains of the earth ovens now emerging from the clay pans is a reminder of how long this land has been home to Aboriginal Australians. Luckily the carved tree is surviving this mother of all droughts, decaying gracefully but gradually becoming less decipherable every year. To the shame of our archaeologists, anthropologists, aboriginal advisory bodies, academics & activists, none of whom have shown any interest or enthusiasm towards these astonishing trees. Like how many living Aboriginal carved trees do we have in this country? Those from Collymongle ( Collarenebri, NSW ) were enhanced with steel tomahawks early last century and many carted off to city museums. There may be a few burial trees surviving in Wiradjuri country so let’s hope someone is looking after them… what price our heritage … going, going, gone

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These astounding trees never stop surprising you. Trying to make sense of the weird marks and patterns is like attempting to understand the weather. The pinched trees in Goorie and also occasionally in Warrambool are hard to work out. At first glance they look like Chinese ringbarking that doesn’t go totally around the tree. It’s as if a giant has pinched the outer layer of wood together with his fingers and it remains bunched up in one section forming a kind of handle. The length & thickness of the gathered wood varies but like other cultural scartrees these pinched ones are generally found in groups. Its location, location, location with cultural scarring only the axcut, handhold and resource scars are found randomly scattered where the people hunted for tree dwelling game. The close orientation of these pinched trees indicates Aboriginal origin but the fact that most of them are dead would suggest ringbarking. No help to be had so just speculation really, I will see if I can attach a pinched tree collage for anyone who would like to guess. New information re local indigenous borders has emerged suggesting this is Kamilaroi not Euahlayi land. Also the Murrumanaarr traditional owners were of the Emu ( Dhinawan ) not Goanna ( Beewee ) people. The boundary between the 2 nations being the big Warrambool not the Barwon river. Sometime during the last ice age ( Pleistocene era ) this old river disappeared underground and the surface channel changed to its present course. These sand hills and patches of redgums with their associated native wells in the old river became a kind of no man’s land and a right of way for those making their way to the Narran Lakes for feasting & ceremony. The campsites of many travellers are obvious in the campfire/fireplace scars on the bases of the trees and all the scattered clay oven heat retainers and hearths. A rare surviving Kamilaroi carved tree, the few “Marker” trees as well as a “Ring tree” identified last week adds weight to these ideas. Ring trees are associated with national boundaries and Marker trees with directional information and significant sites.