The Gameygal lived on the northern side of Botany Bay, between present day La Perouse and the mouth of the Cooks River.
Previous reports on the Aboriginal past of the area where the Art site is located have suggested that it was occupied by the Bidiagal.
[2][3][4] The potential association of the Bidiagal people with the site should not be discounted as a result of this lack of historical detail as after the collapse of the clan structure due to the smallpox epidemic of 1788 and general impact of European invasion, individuals travelled beyond the pre-1788 traditional boundaries.
[5][1] Throughout Australia traditional Aboriginal people practised art making in the places on their land that they visited in their seasonal travels.
The making of artwork and stencils may have been a way of connecting with ancestral beings, embodied in the natural features of the country including rock outcrops such as the one in Earlwood.
In the following years as a result of alienation from their land and its resources and being subject to the devastation of European infectious diseases, the Aboriginal population in the area dramatically reduced.
[5][1] During the 19th Century European settlers transformed the land along both banks of the Cooks river as farms were established for grazing and raising a family's food needs, and also for other industries such as tanning, production of sugar, the harvesting of timber, and also the production of lime from the many middens which had been left by the Aboriginal people of the area for thousands of years.
[7][1] Despite the disturbance of the environment there is abundant evidence of pre-contact Aboriginal occupation of the area including the rock art and midden site.
[1] The site is situated within the context of a rock outcropping from the sandstone ridgeline which dominates the landscape on the south side of the Cooks River valley at Earlwood.
[8] The recording was not detailed, possibly due to obscuring vegetation, and noted only "5 very faint hand stencils, some very indistinct charcoal lines".
The recording also noted that a former neighbour had collected about 20 stone flakes from the site (prior to NPWS legislation protecting Aboriginal relics).
In addition to the shell species previously observed, the Assessment also noted the presence of Trichomya hirsuta (Hairy Mussel).
The Assessment noted the presence of Sydney cockle and whelk shells on the surface elsewhere on the site, but in the context of building debris, and likely to have been moved downhill (by erosion or other disturbance).
Though shell fragments have been observed mid-slope and at the street frontage of the property, these have been stray finds likely resulting from erosion and other disturbance.
Expert advice is required to determine whether the effects of weathering can be reversed in order to recover and preserve the stencils.
Comprising a rockshelter, midden and stencil work, the site offers a rare and unique insight into the daily life as well as the routine and ceremonial culture of the Bidigal people prior to European contact.
The midden deposit may contain artefacts, and evidence relating to diet and subsistence, and the environment of the Cooks River valley prior to European settlement.
[1] Earlwood Aboriginal Art Site was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 November 2009 having satisfied the following criteria.
The making of artwork and stencils may have been a way of connecting with ancestral beings, embodied in the natural features of the country including rock outcrops such as the one in Earlwood.
It is part of the historical legacy of the Aboriginal people of the Sydney basin, and specifically, of the dialect groups (Bidiagal/Gweagal) who inhabited the Cooks and Georges River valleys and the Botany Bay area.
The Earlwood art site and midden is of heritage significance at State level through its association with the Aboriginal people who lived in the area prior to colonisation and whose numbers in the decades after contact were decimated through the alienation of their land and the impact of disease.
[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
The aesthetic significance of this site is enhanced due to the inclusion of the local, regional and state wide rarity of foot stencils in Aboriginal art.
[1] The State heritage significance of this site is also derived from its landmark qualities which, although camouflaged in their current urban setting amidst intensive 20th Century housing development are still in place.
The site is located high above the Cooks River in a "classic Hawkesbury Sandstone formation with cavernous weathering forming an overhang" (Aboriginal Heritage Office 2008 The shelter provided both a good camping place as demonstrated by the presence of the midden and a panoramic vista of the group's country.
"The next step he took was on the northern bank where he became the creator being, Baiame who then created the lands to the north and west of Botany Bay".
The subject site is likely to be of State Heritage Significance to the Aboriginal groups of the local area the wider Sydney area and the State as a for it is a rare example of the living history of Aboriginal people form the pre-contact period to survive in a highly urbanised context.
It has been repeatedly visited by the Officers of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, including Allen Madden who commented that "This shelter also reminds us if our traditions - of caring for country and maintaining links between people and the earth, the water and the animals".
[12] The site is also significantly rare in its urban context and according to reliable sources is "one of only 5 rock shelters with pigment known and used in the wider central part of the Sydney basin" McDonald 2005)[1] The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places/environments in New South Wales.