PERTH, AUSTRALIA—A team from the University of Western Australia’s School of Indigenous Studies found a rare nineteenth-century glass spearhead while visiting Rottnest Island, also known as Wadjemup. Such spearheads are thought to have been made from scraps of glass by Indigenous men and boys who were imprisoned on the island between 1838 and 1931. They were then able to use the weapons to supplement the prison diet of barley, cabbage, and porridge with fish, snake, and quokka—a nocturnal marsupial about the size of a cat. “As I was digging around in the sand with my foot, something shiny glinted in the light and I recognized the object to be a glass spearhead,” Professor Len Collard said in a press release. The team photographed the spearhead and reburied it at the site out of respect for Aboriginal traditions. To see more images of aboriginal glass spearpoints, go to "What's the Point?"
