Aboriginal fish traps made from rocks, Darling River, N.S.W.

Prior to European settlement, indigenous people, in the well watered areas of Australia, constructed ingenious stone fish traps - the design of the trap varying according to the local environmental conditions.  The system in use in this photograph takes advantage of the fluctuating levels of the Darling River. In flood, fish swam freely into the stone constructions only to be trapped as the waters receded again.

Sydney: Tyrrell's Bookshop, 1938. Photograph

Accession number: H20918/50

From the State Library of Victoria's Pictures collection. 

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