Tulas

              Tulas are flakes with prominent bulbs that have been retouched at the distal end. This retouch was created by percussion blows onto the ventral surface, removing flakes from the dorsal face, and removing all non-bulbar portions to leave a semi-circular edge. With its broad, straight platform, large bulb and semi-circular retouched edge the specimen shown above is a typical tula.

              All tulas have at some stage had this distinctive morphology. In this form tulas were apparently useable and were traded. Trade parcels cached in pits, but never recovered, contain specimens in this form. However, relatively few unused specimens of this kind are found in archaeological assemblages.

              Most of the tulas found in artefact scatters were exhausted when discarded and have a noticeably different shape. Tulas were progressively resharpened by further retouching the distal end. This process typically reduced the length of a specimen without altering its width and changed a convex working edge to a concave one. The normal sequence of morphological transformation is illustrated in the drawing below.

              Prolonged resharpening of the distal end ultimately creates a short, rectangular object that has been retouched steeply on the distal end. In this form the specimen cannot be held in its resin haft, and is discarded. This exhausted form, called a tula slug, normally looks like the specimen below.

              This type of implement was initially called by its Wonkonguru name Tuhla (now abbreviated to Tula), and was observed in use at the end of the nineteenth century. The platform portion of the tula was fastened by resin into a wooden handle, to form a composite tool primarily used as an adze or gouge. Most prehistoric specimens are thought to have been used primarily for wood adzing and scraping. However the functional description of this class as "tula adze" is to be avoided, since adzing was almost certainly a minor function.

For additional information see:

Hiscock,P. 1988 A cache of tulas from the Boulia District, Western Queensland, Archaeology in Oceania 23(2):60-70.

Hiscock,P. and Veth,P. 1991 Change in the Australian desert culture: a reanalysis of tulas from Puntutjarpa rockshelter, World Archaeology 22(3):332-345.