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A field trip to Rottnest last year brought to light an unexpected Indigenous treasure.The search for Indigenous artefacts had been the highlight of the day.  As Sabrina Swift began walking down the grassy hill she felt an overwhelming urge to stop in her tracks and dig. What she found was something the School of Indigenous Studies Professor Len Collard had never seen in his 25 years of exploration on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island).

The perfectly intact ceramic spearhead in the style of the Kimberley people lay just below the surface, as if it was waiting to be found. Sabrina, herself of Bardi people from the Kimberley, believes she may have been drawn to the find by her ancestors.

"As I gazed down the hill I had a feeling I had to head down the slope. I stopped halfway down and had an overwhelming urge to dig. I didn't have to dig far and as soon as I saw it I knew what it was," the SIS Senior Project Officer said. "I felt a strong connection to my relatives."

Between 1838 and 1931 some 3,700 Indigenous men and boys were imprisoned on Wadjemup. Records show photographs of Sunday hunting day where the Indigenous prisoners would hunt to supplement their diet of barley, cabbage and porridge with fish, snake and quokka. It's believed the prisoners would find a place on top of a hill often overlooking the mainland where they would make spear tips from scrap pieces of glass.

"It was surreal after all those years of scratching around," Professor Collard said. "I have been going for 25 years and mainly only found broken glass spear tips at the scatter site which was a place of industry. This find was significant because something led Sabrina to dig it up and it is definitely made of a fine ceramic. We've seen bits of plate there and plenty of broken glass spear tips but never a finished ceramic spear tip. It's like a work of art."

A group of forty Indigenous and non-Indigenous students took part in the visit to country organised by Assistant Professor Aileen Walsh and SIS Director and Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning Associate Professor Grant Revell .

The students taking part were from two UWA programs: SIS's Looking North program researching historical events and issues in the North of Western Australia and the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts' Sharing Space program, which aims to equip non-Indigenous planning and design students to work in different Aboriginal contexts and regions.

A/Professor Revell said it was important to take both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students on country.

"The island is a special spot which offers a great learning environment about our Indigenous heritage," he said.

"The architecture, landscape architecture and planning students were really moved by Sabrina's discovery and how she came to connect to country and to find the artefact at the end of a day of searching."

"It sends a strong message about reading our cultural heritage and what is in the landscape, how to read and experience it and how to collaborate," Grant Revell said.

The story goes that if you take Indigenous artefacts off the island the old people will follow them.

The UWA spear tip discoveries remain on Wadjemup.