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… a man who attempted to oppose our Landing came down to the Beach with a shield … made of the bark of a tree; this he left behind when he ran away, and we found upon taking it up that it plainly had been pierced through with a single pointed lance near the centre.

This must be that very shield. It has the hole near the centre mentioned by Banks, and traces of white colouring, as recorded by the expedition’s illustrators. It’s rough-hewn, a rich reddish brown, about a metre (40 inches) high and 30 centimetres (12 inches) wide – quite narrow for protecting a man – and gently curved. You can sense the trunk from which it was cut. It is made of red mangrove wood, one of the woods chosen for making Australian shields, because it is tough enough to absorb the impact of a spear or deflect a club or boomerang and is extremely resistant to insects and rot, even when submerged in sea-water. At the back is a handle made out of flexible green mangrove wood that has dried to a firm shape for a good grip. The person who made this shield knew precisely what materials were fittest for purpose.

This shield was owned by a man living in a land that his ancestors had occupied for some 60,000 years. Phil Gordon, Aboriginal heritage officer at the Australian Museum in Sydney, describes the way of life in the area:

One of the great myths about Aboriginal Australia, of course, is that it was a hand-to-mouth existence, for want of a better word. The living around Sydney and in the Sydney region and a vast majority of the coastal part of Australia was very good; the fish levels in the harbours were high … Sydney harbour would have been a great place to live. The climate was good; the economic existence was good. That allowed people then to involve themselves in the spiritual side of their existence and the other parts of their culture.

Cook and Banks would later remark on how happy and contented the people seemed, although we know that there were conflicts between tribal groups. As well as the shield, the men had spears, and indeed the hole here in the centre of the shield was made by a wooden spear or lance, presumably in combat. This piercing, as well as marks and scrapes on the surface, make it clear that the shield had seen action before it came up against Cook’s musket shot. The shield also seems to have indicated individual identity or tribal allegiance: the traces of white paint have been found to be white kaolin clay, and it is likely there was a painted white mark or symbol at the centre of the shield. Phil Gordon elaborates:

There was warfare in Aboriginal Australia, of course; there were blood feuds, group against group, all those sorts of things. But they’re also a marker of your cultural grip, so the shape of your shield would be different from other areas, and the design on the shield would be different, which would equate to your status within the group and your standing among the groups all around you, too. So shields were distinctively different from coastal New South Wales to the Kimberley coasts region in Western Australia.

Cook, of course, knew nothing about indigenous customs – no European could – and the potential for misunderstanding in this First Encounter was limitless. In retrospect, neither side seemed to have wanted to kill or maim the other. The indigenous men threw stones and spears, but they missed everyone. Given that they were hunter-gatherers who lived by the accurate use of a spear, it seems highly likely that these were warning shots – telling this group of white strangers to go away and leave them alone. Cook, on his side, claims he thought the spears might have poison tips, so justifying the musket shot that he aimed at the legs of the men. When they ran off, Cook and his crew disembarked and went into the nearby woods:

We found here a few small huts made of the bark of trees in one of which were four or five small children with whom we left some strings of beads, etc. …

Cook had found in the Pacific islands that trading and bartering