Aboriginal People in the Blue Mountains
There are many sites throughout the Blue Mountains that are of both cultural and historical significance to Aboriginal people.
Australian’s natural and cultural heritage is integral to the environment. Our natural heritage is the physical landscape – plants, animals, mountains and rivers. This landscape is also imbued with human associations, stories, myths, personal histories and emotions.
Aboriginal people have lived in the Blue Mountains for many thousands of years. The region incorporates significant parts of the traditional lands of the Gundungarra and Darug tribal groups.
Aboriginal heritage extends well beyond archaeological sites, rock engraving and rock shelter art. It includes natural landscape features, ceremonial, mythological or religious areas, massacre sites or other places with which Aboriginal people maintain a strong spiritual or historical association.
The Blue Mountains and surrounding plateaus comprise a rich diversity of Aboriginal sites. A rock shelter on Kings Tableland, Wentworth Falls, dates Aboriginal prehistoric occupation back to 22,000 years.
Research and discovery of Aboriginal sites has centred on developed areas, that is, alongside walking tracks or close to residential development. The large extent of relatively unexplored terrain potentially contains a wealth of important Aboriginal sites. Large areas have not been the subject of systematic survey or the recording of Aboriginal history. These areas may contain sites which are not currently known.
The Aboriginal People of the Blue Mountains invite you to share their unique home.
Blue Mountains Aboriginal Community - Aboriginal community and business in the Blue Mountains.
