Australian Aborigines and meteorites 
97 
meteorite in awe, possibly as a sacred and, 
therefore, fearful thing (Madigan 1939). 
Boxhole (Hart Range fragment) 
In 1944 a fragment of iron meteorite weighing 
608 g was presented by Mr J.S. Foxhall to the 
Geological Survey of Western Australia. The 
meteorite was evidently discovered at a locality in 
the Harts Range some 60 km south of the Boxhole 
meteorite impact crater (22°37'S, 135°12'E). A 
detailed study of the Hart Range meteorite by De 
Laeter (1973) has shown that it is a fragment of the 
Boxhole meteorite. De Laeter (1973) concluded that 
it was probable that the meteorite had been 
transported from the crater by human agency. The 
age of the Boxhole crater (c 5400 yrs) as 
determined by Kohman and Goel (1963) is similar 
to that of the Henbury craters although Wasson 
(1967) has shown that differences in the chemistry 
and metallurgy of tire impacting meteorites prove 
that they are two distinct events. Nevertheless, like 
Henbury, the age of formation of the Boxhole 
crater is well within the time of Aboriginal 
occupation of Australia and the event may have 
been witnessed. 
New South Wales 
Yandama and Cartoonkana meteorites 
A mass of stony meteorite weighing 5.8 kg was 
acquired by the South Australian Museum in 1914 
from Mr T.F. Gill. The exact date of find is 
unknown. In his description, Alderman (1936) 
notes that the meteorite named Yandama was 
found at "Blacks' Camp, Big Plain, Yandama 
Station, NSW" (29°45’S, 141°02'E). Alderman (1936) 
also noted that the meteorite has a fractured 
surface that "indicates the possibility of the stone, as 
found, having one time formed part of a considerably 
larger mass". 
An additional stone weighing 290 g was also 
found before 1914 in the same general area as the 
Yandama meteorite and was named Cartoonkana 
(Alderman 1936). It has since been suggested by 
Mason (1974) on the basis of classification that the 
Yandama and Cartoonkana meteorites could be 
fragments of the same meteorite. Interestingly, the 
localities of both the Yandama and Cartoonkana 
finds lie close to an old Aboriginal camp. However, 
the possibility that the meteorites may have been 
broken from the same mass by Aborigines and then 
distributed cannot be substantiated. 
Western Australia 
Mt Dooling (Gosnells fragment) 
Three masses of an unusual iron meteorite 
(Mount Dooling) found in Western Australia 
between 1909 and 1979 have been shown to belong 
to the same fall (De Laeter et al. 1972; De Laeter 
1980). Two large masses weighing 31.5 kg (found 
1909) and 701 kg (found 1979), respectively, were 
found just to tine east of the Mount Manning Range 
(30°00'S, 119°40'E) approximately 430 km north 
east of Perth, whilst a third mass, weighing 1.5 kg, 
was found in 1960 near the Perth suburb of 
Gosnells on the edge of the Darling escarpment 
(32°05'S, 116°01'E) some 19 km south east of the 
city centre. De Laeter et al. (1972) demonstrated 
convincingly that the Gosnells meteorite was a 
fragment broken from the 31.5 kg mass of the 
Mount Dooling meteorite prior to its discovery 
(1909) and transported by human agency, although 
they concluded that it was not known when, or by 
whom. 
The Gosnells meteorite fragment was found in 
bushland. McCall (1972) and De Laeter and Bevan 
(1992) suggest that transport of the Gosnells mass 
from the Mount Manning area to Perth by 
Aborigines is one possible explanation as to how 
the fragments became so widely displaced. 
Dalgaranga (Murchison Downs fragment) 
Recently, Bevan and Griffin (1994) have shown 
that a small metallic slug, weighing 33.5 g, found 
near Murchison Downs Station (26°40'S, 119°00'E) 
in 1925 is a transported fragment of the stony-iron 
meteorite that formed the Dalgaranga meteorite 
impact crater. The distance between the reported 
find-site of the Murchison Downs meteorite and 
the Dalgaranga crater is ca. 200 km. Bevan and 
Griffin (1994) suggest that the Murchison Downs 
fragment has been transported by human agency, 
and may have been transported by Aborigines. 
The age of formation of the Dalgaranga crater is 
variably reported to be between 3000-27000 yrs BP 
(Shoemaker and Shoemaker 1988; Grieve 1991). 
Like the Henbury craters, these ages lie well within 
the known Aboriginal occupation of Australia and 
the formation of the Dalgaranga crater may have 
been witnessed by Aborigines. However, we have 
been unable to discover any references to this 
occurrence in Aboriginal myths. 
Mundrabilla (Tookana Rockhole fragments) 
The Mundrabilla meteorite shower, including the 
largest meteorite (11.5 tonnes) recovered from 
Australia, occurs over a large strewnfield more 
than 50 km long in the central Western Australian 
Nullarbor Plain (De Laeter 1972; De Laeter and 
Cleverly 1983; Bevan and Binns 1989). Some twelve 
large masses totalling more than 22 tonnes of this 
shower are in collections around the world 
(Graham et al. 1985; Bevan and Binns 1989). 
Additionally, thousands of smaller fragments of 
the same meteorite shower are known which have 
characteristic rounded, "knuckle-bone" shapes. On 
the basis of Al 26 and Be 10 activity, the age of the fall 
