Aboriginal Subsistence Strategies in Arid Australia
Skip to content
Skip to content
Water and Food Storage
Water is critical to survival in arid environments. Knowing the locality and reliability of different sources of water in the landscape was a vital part of Aboriginal knowledge of such regions. This included knowing the location and behaviour of underground water and how to obtain water from the roots of particular trees. During a drought it was not usually a lack of water that was the major problem rather it was the impact it had on other food resources. To counter this, in some places the seeds of a range of plants were stored in bags. Stores of seed and water lent a measure of safety to Aboriginal groups during treks from one campsite to another over large tracts of waterless country.
