A preliminary study of culturally modified sugarbag trees in the Laura Sandstone Basin, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland

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Erythrophleum spp. (Cooktown ironwood) is an endemic north Australian tree that is a key cultural resource. In Cape York Peninsula (CYP), Traditional Owners value, use, care for and manage the trees in culturally appropriate ways. Members of the Agayrr Bamangay Milbi (ABM) Project team have recorded hundreds of culturally modified Cooktown ironwood trees (CMTs) across southeast CYP, stretching from Jowalbinna in the south to Cape Melville in the north. In this paper we specifically discuss CMTs with evidence of sugarbag extraction. These trees provide a chronological sequence of technology (from stone to steel axes) and an important, if vulnerable, material record of natural resource procurement, cultural knowledge and connections to Country. We show how the significance of sugarbag trees is reflected not only in their ubiquity but also in the iconography of rock art, other cultural associations and archaeological values. A dearth of metal-cut sugarbag scars – in stark contrast to elsewhere in CYP and despite an abundance of such axes circulating amongst Aboriginal groups in the region – is posited to be related to the especially violent local contact history associated with mining. We discuss trends in distribution that invite more detailed studies of the environmental distribution of the Cooktown ironwood and of the contemporary distribution of native bees, noting that non-cultural burning and land-clearing practices represent ongoing threats to CMT survival in the region.