In archaeology and anthropology a digging stick, or sometimes yam stick, is the term given to a variety of wooden implements used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers or burrowing animals and anthills. They may also have other uses in hunting, farming or general domestic tasks.

They are common to the Indigenous Australians but also other peoples worldwide and normally consist of little more than a sturdy stick which has been shaped or sharpened and perhaps hardened by being placed temporarily in a fire. It is a simple device, and has to be tough and hardy in order not to break.

In Mexico and the Mesoamerican region the digging stick was used for traditional agriculture such as for cultivating maize, and still is used for agriculture in some indigenous communities. It is known as a coa stick in this area and usually flares out into a triangle at the end. Some newer 20th century versions have added a little metal on the tip. Digging sticks were the most important agricultural digging tools used in Mesoamerica and throughout the ancient Americas.

Dorothy Napangardi (born circa 1952?/1956?) is a distinguished contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Mina Mina. She is one of around 3,000 Warlpiri speakers who live in or are originally from the Tanami Desert region of Central Australia.

Dorothy Napangardi is an Indigenous Australian, born circa 1952 or 1956. grew up in the settlement town of Yuendumu, where her father is still a senior lawgiver. She had little formal schooling, but was instructed in the historic Dreaming of her people. 'Dreaming' is an imprecise English translation of the Warlpiri word 'Jukurrpa', which describes the origins and journeys of ancestral beings in the land, and identifies the sacred places where the spirits reside. The Jukurrpa theme, generally, is one of the inseparability of the self from the environment and usually includes travelling across the land. These are notions than can also be found in Napangardi's art, with its profusion of intersecting lines suggesting spiritual meaning and evocative depth. In the words of a Warlpiri speaker quoted in a catalogue of Napangardi’s work: “To me, Dorothy’s work is like Yapa (people) running through and across their country, moving across their pathways when they go travelling.”