Australian Aboriginal artefacts include a variety of cultural artefacts used by Aboriginal Australians. Most Aboriginal artefacts were multi-purpose and could be used for a variety of different occupations. Spears, clubs, boomerangs and shields were used generally as weapons for hunting and in warfare. Watercraft technology artefacts in the form of dugout and bark canoes were used for transport and for fishing. Stone artefacts include cutting tools and grinding stones to hunt and make food. Coolamons and carriers such as dillybags, allowed Aboriginal peoples to carry water, food and cradle babies. Message sticks were used for communication, and ornamental artefacts for decorative and ceremonial purposes. Aboriginal children’s toys were used to both entertain and educate.

Aboriginal peoples used several different types of weapons including shields (also known as hielaman), spears, spear-throwers, boomerangs and clubs. Peoples from different regions used different weapons. Some peoples, for example, would fight with boomerangs and shields, whereas in another region they would fight with clubs. Weapons could be used both for hunting game and in warfare.

Weapons were of different styles in different areas. For example, a shield from Central Australia is very different from a shield from North Queensland.

Aboriginal peoples used spears for a variety of purposes including hunting, fishing, gathering fruit, fighting, retribution, punishment, in ceremony, as commodities for trade, and as symbolic markers of masculinity. Spears were historically used by skilful hand-throwing, but with changes in Aboriginal spear technologies during the mid-Holocene, they could be thrown further and with more accuracy with the aid of spear-thrower projectiles. Spears could be made from a variety of materials including softwoods, bamboo (Bambusa arnhemica), cane and reed. Projectile points could also be made from many different materials including flaked stone, shell, wood, kangaroo or wallaby bone, lobster claws, stingray spines, fish teeth, and more recently iron, glass and ceramics. These spear points could be bound to the spear using mastics, glues, gum, string, plant fibre and sinews.

An Aboriginal club, otherwise known as a waddy or nulla-nulla, could be used for a variety of purposes such as for hunting, fishing, digging, for grooving tools, warfare and in ceremonies. A fighting club, called a ‘Lil-lil’, could, with a heavy blow, break a leg, rib or skull. Clubs which could create severe trauma were made from extremely hard woods such as acacias including ironwood and mitji. Many clubs were fire hardened and others had sharpened stone quartz attached to the handle with spinifex resin.

The boomerang is recognised by many as a significant cultural symbol of Australia. The term 'returning boomerang' is used to distinguish between ordinary boomerangs and the small percentage which, when thrown, will return to its thrower. The oldest wooden boomerang artefact known in Australia, excavated from the Wyrie Swamp, South Australia in 1973, is estimated to be 9,500 years old.

Boomerangs could be used:

Shields were mainly used by Aboriginal warriors to defend themselves in dispute battles, often for commodities such as territory. A shield which had not lost a battle was thought to be inherently powerful and was a prized possession. Shields were made from wood or bark and usually had carved markings or painted designs. They could also be used in ceremonies such as in corroborees.