Lake Condah Aboriginal Settlement - SW Victoria
Posted by: 
bucketeer
S 38° 12.173 E 141° 46.386
54H E 567689 N 5771392
Around the lava flows that formed Lake Condah & Darlot's Creek, a series of several hundred small circular stone ruins remain that were used as shelter by the local Gunditjmara Aboriginal people.
Waymark Code: WM8GH5
Location: Victoria, Australia
Date Posted: 03/30/2010
Views: 5
Radio-carbon dating has proven that the Lake Condah, Darlot's Creek and surrounding area was inhabited for at least 8000 years, before the arrival of Europeans.
The Gunditjmara people used a sophisticated system of fish traps and weirs to capture eels, which they smoked for storage and trade.
This makes this location the site one of the oldest known human societies.
The abundance of basalt rocks around the area allowed the Gunditjmara to develop a complex network of stone structures incorporating fish creeks, ponds, weirs, traps and gates.
Local groups and families owned different estates including their fish traps and other structures like a village, which were passed on to their descendants.
This area at Tyrendarra was included on the National Heritage List in 2005 as part of the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape, which contains the only remaining permanent houses built by an Indigenous community in Australia.
Stone structures like those at lake Condah have also been found across south-western Victoria. Windbreaks were formed of stone as well as roofed storehouses in the nearby Eumeralla River region, Lake Condah and around Mt Eccles.
Many of the stone structures are located on mounds up to several metres high, formed by succesive generations of the inhabitants campfire ashes.
In 1842, Government Aboriginal Protector, George Robinson reported "Near Bessibelle, around 500 people inhabited a 'village' of houses built of stone with sod cladding on a timber-framed dome".
In 1898, a number of circular stone walls were seen south of Lake Condah. These had been roofed with boughs and bark like an ordinary hut.
Information was taken from Australian Goverment Cultural Portal Website (
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Other related weblinks
Lake Condah Sustainable Development Project (
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National Heritage website (
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The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies website (
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