Wyrie Swamp wooden boomerangs
Bumeranes de madera de Wyrie Swamp
- Date
- c. 8000 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Wyrie Swamp, Millicent, South Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- Aboriginal hunters of south-eastern Australia
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A set of wooden boomerangs preserved in a peat bog, the oldest in Australia, including throwing-stick shapes and others with an aerodynamic profile. It documents a tradition that in Australia developed the returning boomerang, a rotating aerofoil that generates lift.
The Obłazowa ivory boomerang (Poland, c. 32 ka) is older, but not of the returning kind; in Australia the tradition is independent. It is debated which Wyrie Swamp pieces could return to the thrower.
What it led to
- hunting birds and small animals with aerodynamic projectiles
- the returning boomerang as a plaything and decoy
- modern study of rotating-wing aerodynamics