Indigenous groups have a strong spiritual and cultural connection to the River Murray and its lands and waters. The river sustained them with food sources like fish, shellfish, birds, and animals. Significant cultural sites exist along the river for burials, fishing, dreaming stories, rock art, and history. Ancient fish traps near Brewarrina are among the oldest human-made structures in the world. The Willandra Lakes were also an important area, containing some of the oldest human remains outside of Africa.

1. INDIGENOUS HERITAGE
AND CULTURE
River Murray

2. CONNECTION TO LAND AND WATER
• The rivers sustain the life and identity of Aboriginal people of the Basin. Aboriginal
people not only view water as connected to the land, but they also view themselves
as an integral part of the river system. This holistic understanding and connection
gives Aboriginal people a strong sense of responsibility for the health of the rivers.
The rivers and floodplains are of particular importance to the traditional cultural
beliefs and practices.

4. SOURCE FOR LIFE: FOOD
• ‘Fish and shellfish were our main food. Men did the hunting with spears or nets as
well as dams. Flocks of birds were trapped in the nets that they strung across the
creeks.
• They made stronger nets and staked them out between the trees. These were for
catching emus and kangaroos. The cords of these nets were as thick as your finger.
• To hide from the animals they hunted, men made screens of branches woven with
grass. They would creep up on the emus and kangaroos until they were close
enough to spear them.
• The men also made rods to snare water birds. For camouflage they put branches of
reeds on their heads and swam underwater through the reeds.’

5. SIGNIFICANT SITES
• Significant sites within the Murray Darling Basin are for;
• Burial sites
• Fishing Traps
• Dreaming and creation sites
• Art sites and history documentation

6. WILLANDRA LAKES
• Some of the oldest remains of modern humans, outside of Africa, are found at Lake
Mungo, part of the World Heritage listed Willandra Lakes Region. Evidence of the
oldest cremation in the world has been found here.
• The Willandra Lakes, 150 km north-west of Balranald in New South Wales, was once
a series of large freshwater lakes along what was the main channel of the Lachlan
River. The lakes were an important food source for Aboriginal people. The lakes
dried up around 15,000 to 18,000 years ago in response to a warming climate.
• Aboriginal people remained in the region and their descendants were still living in
the area when squatters settled in the 1850s and when Burke and Wills travelled
through in 1860.

7. BREWARRINA FISH TRAPS
• Ancient fish traps, thought to be
one of the oldest human-made
structures in the world, are
located just below the weir at
Brewarrina. The traps are
constructed from carefully placed
rocks in a circular arrangement
and are still in use today.

8. KOW SWAMP
• Located just south of the River Murray, near Cohuna in northern Victoria, Kow
Swamp is significant in that the unique features of human skeletal remains found
there indicate that there were waves of immigration of Aboriginal people to
Australia.
• Kow Swamp has been used as water storage since 1900 and while evidence of
Aboriginal occupation was evident, its significance was not recognised until the
discovery of extensive remains between 1968 and 1972, which were dated at 9,000–
13,000 years old. The site continues to be used as off-river storage for irrigators but
management plans acknowledge the site as a sacred resting place for the ancestors
of the Yorta Yorta people, and provide for protection of culturally significant places
and landscapes within the area.

9. CANOE TREES ALONG THE MURRAY
Near Blanch Town
along River Murray

10. NEAR CURRENCY CREEK