This core is made from the base of a glass bottle from the Boralga Native Police camp on the Laura River, north Queensland, ca. 1875-1894. Flakes were struck from the bottle base to use as cutting tools, and the base itself may have been used as a tool.
The dot-and-line mould-cutter’s mark on this bottle base is associated with Nuttall & Co., a bottle manufacturer based in Lancashire, England. The mark dates to between 1872 and 1913, consistent with the chronology of the Boralga camp. A series of flakes were struck from around the periphery of the bottle base by striking blows against the surface of the push-up, or against the interior surface of the bottle. The core has areas of microflaking, perhaps from use as a scraping tool.
The artefact is curated by the Queensland Museum, catalogue no. BOR-034652.
See the annotations for technological details about this stone tool.
The Native Mounted Police in Queensland was a government paramilitary force formed to eradicate Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion. The Native Mounted Police, under European leaders, committed many of the colonial frontier massacres of Aboriginal people in Australia in the 19th century. The force was staffed by Aboriginal people taken from one part of Australia to counter resistance in another. Traditional stone-flaking techniques were applied to glass by the troopers or their families in these camps.
