Mount William stone axe quarry

The Mount William stone axe quarry (traditionally known as Wil-im-ee moor-ing) is an Aboriginal Australian archaeological site in Central Victoria, Australia.

Chipped and ground stone axes or hatchets were an essential part of Aboriginal toolkits in southeast Australia, with the Mount William greenstone being one of the most prized and extensively traded materials.

The tribes who are camped on the creek were eager to obtain these hatchets and in return for one polished axe they gave two of their opossum skin covers.

[13]In the 1960s and 1970s, Mt William drew the attention of anthropologists and archaeologists (notably including Donald Thomson and Isabel McBryde).

[14] McBryde's study of trade systems in the 1970s included investigation of the distribution of axes from Mount William and other quarries in Victoria and New South Wales drawing on ethno-historical sources, linguistic and archaeological evidence and petrological studies (using thin section analysis for axes from archaeological sites and stone sources), to reveal distribution trends and social value.

[17] Mount William had long been recognised as a special Aboriginal place when the first attempt was made to provide some formal protection in 1910.

[18] In 1917 Allan F. Cameron, Member for Dalhousie in the Victorian Parliament considered that: Something like twenty-five acres of land could be procured at a reasonable price, and fenced in, to be held for all time as the great historic landmark of Australia, furnishing the only indication or proof that we have that this country was inhabited for hundreds of years before the white man came here,[19] In 1918 Cameron sought an appropriation to purchase the land,[20] and again in 1919.

[22] In 1969, the landowner, a Mr Powell, became concerned about damage to the site, and offered to sell a portion of CA 24 to the Shire of Romsey.

[23][24] In 1997 the Shire of Romsey (now Macedon Ranges Shire Council) gifted their land to the Indigenous Land Corporation, which subsequently put the site under the management of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation,[25] It has also been included on the Register of the National Estate and the Australian National Heritage List.