A number of edge-ground hatchets were identified from various locations in central Queensland during recent investigations conducted as part of the Gooreng Gooreng Cultural Heritage Project. Macroscopic examination suggested that some hatchets were manufactured on a distinctive form of rhyolitic tuff which is restricted in occurrence to the Town of Seventeen Seventy - Agnes Water area on the southern Curtis Coast. The hatchets are distributed over an area of some 6000 km2, centred on the town of Lowmead within the ethnohistorically documented linguistic borders of Gooreng Gooreng country. Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) was employed in an attempt to provenance the hatchets to particular outcrops of rhyolitic tuff on the basis of trace element geochemistry. Preliminary results confirm that all hatchets identified as rhyolitic tuff exhibit a similar geochemical signature. Moreover, this geochemistry can be correlated with the background samples from the Ironbark Site Complex, the only major rhyolite quarry known in the region. The study enhances our understanding of past Aboriginal lifeways in the region by situating strategies of stone procurement and use in the landscape
