Archaeological and Geomorphological Investigations on Mt. Moffatt Station, Queensland, Australia.

Abstract

History came late to Lethbridge Pocket, on Mt. Moffatt's northern boundary, just over the crest of the Great Dividing Range, source of the extensive Maranoa, Warrego and Fitzroy river systems. Explorer Major Thomas Mitchell skirted the area to the westward in 1846, observing (Mitchell, 1848, 208) that the prospect towards the dominating, massive table-lands ‘was very grand’; the name of Dean Buckland, geologist and antiquarian, was bestowed upon the loftiest table-land, at the foot of which Lethbridge Pocket lay concealed. Ludwig Leichhardt had passed to the north-east, a year previously, but he too preferred to avoid the rugged mountains, now termed the Carnarvon and Chesterton Ranges. Both the journals of Mitchell and Leichhardt testify, on many pages, to the abundant material traces of a populous aboriginal community in the region. Leichhardt commented (1847, 45) that ‘appearances indicated that the commencement of the (Carnarvon) ranges was a favourite resort of the “blackfellows”. The remains of recent repasts of mussels were strewed about the larger water-holes’.