Last updated 13Oct23
Nursery Swamp Rock Art Site 1 (NS1)
Visits: 14 Oct 23, 11 Oct 23, 9 Sep 23.
There are 3 recognised indigenous rock art sites near Nursery Creek/Swamp, as shown in the ACT Heritage Council’s ACT Heritage Register entry 20037. No location data can be obtained from the figure 37 schematic.
Figure 37 from ACT Heritage Council
J H Winston-Gregson’s MA thesis, GUDGENBY: a register of archaeological sites in the proposed Gudgenby National Park, ANU, 1978, lists this site as G11.
W-G G11
A 6-figure grid reference is given, bearings to recognisable features and a location description. The 6-figure grid reference, when converted from AGD66 to GDA94, defines a 100m square containing the possible location of the site. The bearings, when converted from Magnetic to Grid, converted to back bearings and plotted, indicate another possible location of the site.
In August 2023 Susan W sent me an unreferenced page containing photos of the NS1 site.
Page 1 of unsourced paper
In August 2023 my good friend Lauren O spent time at the ACT Heritage Library and provided me with publicly available information primarily from Kelvin L C Officer’s NAMADGI PICTURES – The Aboriginal Rock Art Sites Within the Namadgi National Park, ACT, 1989. Information included an 8-figure grid reference. If you convert that from AGD66 to GDA94, you might get close but there are heaps of boulders in the “… boulder filled creek bed”.
NS1 from Officer’s NAMADGI PICTURES page 60
NS1 from Officer’s NAMADGI PICTURES page 61
In September 2023 maXine C sent me a paper Fenja Theden-Ringl (2016) Aboriginal presence in the high country: new dates from the Namadgi Ranges in the Australian Capital Territory, Australian Archaeology, 82:1, 25-42. Greg H had also sent me this information in the PhD thesis format. It contains technical information concerning NS1. The paper refers to the site as NSS (Nursery Swamp South).
NSS from Fenja Theden-Ringl
NSS from Fenja Theden-Ringl
Other possible location clues came from Joan Goodrum’s site location schematic.
Nursery Swamp Indigenous Sites Joan Goodrum
We search for this site and found it on 9 Sep 23.