User:Luluzulu1/Mount Isa

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Before European contact, the Mount Isa region was part of an expansive trade network spanning the entire Lake Eyre Basin and beyond. In particular, it was a valued source of stone for stone tools such as hand axes.

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Long before European contact, the Mount Isa region was a center for trade and production of dolerite and basalt stone tools and objects. There is evidence of ground-edge stone tools as old as 20,000 years, the earliest in the world, originating from Mount Isa quarries. As of about 1000 years before the present (BP), large, ground-edge stone axes from Mount Isa were particularly prized by the peoples of the Lake Eyre Basin. They were not only valuable tools, but valuable trade items as well, and were often traded for the tobacco plant pituri. Archaeologist Iain Davidson suggests that they were traded partly for reasons unrelated to function, as they were often sought after despite the availability of local resources. Leilira blades were also likely produced in the Mount Isa region, though dating is uncertain.

Rock art is abundant in the region as well. It largely consists of engraved petrographs and free-painted designs; stenciled designs are rare. Rock art in the Mount Isa region varies stylistically site-by-site, and includes circular, geometric, and figurative motifs. One figurative motif particular to the Mount Isa region is the north-west central Queensland anthropomorph figure. They are usually painted one color with an outline in a different color (often red and yellow, respectively) and have distinctive feathered headdresses, no face, and often a third leg which is variously interpreted as either a penis or a lizard's tail. These figures are found near reliable water sources, and may have been used to mark trade and travel paths between regions. Analysis indicates that the ochres used for the paint originate over 100km southeast of Mount Isa. Davidson suggests that, like the Mount Isa stone axes, the ochre was valued for cultural reasons in addition to functional, economic reasons. This, combined with dating marking the anthropomorphs and stone axes as contemporaneous at about 1000 BP, suggests that they were all intertwined components of an extensive trade network stretching across the entire Lake Eyre Basin.

Some rock art depicting figures and hands in the Mount Isa region, including some of the north-west central Queensland anthropomorphs, have only three fingers. The reason is unclear, but it may have a connection to the later observed common practice among Kalkadoon women of amputation of the little finger. Though Mount Isa was a center for trade, fundamental stylistic differences suggest that there was little to no artistic exchange between the Mount Isa region and surrounding regions, aside from the anthropomorphs.