Everyday Artefacts: Subsistence and Quality of Life at the Prisoner Barracks, Port Arthur, Tasmania (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
"Historical archaeology in Australia has countless artefact assemblages awaiting research and analysis. This thesis is the study of one such collection; the artefacts of personal consumption recovered during the first archaeological excavation at Port Arthur. The site was the Prisoner Barracks and was excavated in 1977 by Maureen Byrne and a team of volunteers but was never fully analysed due to Byrne's sad death the same year. The assemblage, with all artefacts excluding the faunal material, has been catalogued and analysed for this thesis. The results present an interpretation of the assemblage, considering personal consumption and the effects of hierarchy on the general ways of life of the occupants. This thesis uses archaeological and documentary evidence to build on the understanding of the site's history. It explores who the occupants were; privileged convicts in the early phases, and military regiments, constables or officers and their families in the later phases of the nineteenth century. Through the artefact analysis, everyday life is examined, revealing how consumption was a combination of occupants adapting to make do and also reaching supplies beyond the settlement's confines. The physical and institutional isolation added complexity to the acquisition and consumption of goods, while these elements of the site also changed over time. By exploring the potential of the site and collection, this thesis also establishes the assemblage for further research involving larger scale comparisons."
Convict depots inhabited between 1850 and 1875 were excavated in the Western Australian regional towns of York and Toodyay. The project examines the regional characteristics of the convict system through the evidence of lifeways of the depots’ inhabitants. Excavations at York recorded four depot structures: the commissariat, stables, a previously unknown privy, and the extant Superintendent’s building. Excavations at Toodyay recorded seven depot structures: the convict barracks, hospital, kitchen, Warder’s quarters, privy, Superintendent’s quarters and commissariat. A range of structural styles and techniques were recorded, the result of limited supervision of a constantly changing convict workforce with variable skill levels. At both sites less than 30% of the total contexts and approximately 10% of the deposits could be confidently attributed to the convict-era.
Australia’s industrious convicts: A reappraisal of archaeological approaches to convict labour
Australian Archaeology, 2013
Over the last three decades the convict as worker has become an increasingly studied aspect of the Australian transportation experience. With their insight into the landscapes and material culture of the convict experience, historical archaeologists have had—and continue to have— an important role to play in such research. This paper draws upon previously published studies of the archaeology and history of convict labour, considering the use of such labour in the colonies which received convicts between 1788–1868: primarily Van Diemen’s Land, New South Wales and Western Australia. Focusing on the use of convicts by the government, it finds that there is a distinct group of settings within which convict labour was deployed. In addition, the paper discusses the key determinants that resulted in the formation and evolution of the places of convict labour. Whilst not intended as a restrictive model, this synthesis of convict labour settings and their formative factors provides a contextual framework and classificatory system for future research.
The convict ero in Western Australia (1850 to 1868) represents the last phase of British Transportation. raising questions about how this final evolution of the philosophical and practical aspects of the system compares with earlier forms in eastern Australia and elsewhere. This paper considers the history and archaeology afWestern Australian convictism and proposes afi-ameworkfor study based on whether places were associated with the operation of the system (e.g. prisons and work camps), housed administrators or guards. or were the product of the system (public works). The preliminary survey suggests that despite some continuity with eastern Australia, this late stage had less focus on reform and greater interest in producing a dispersed labour force. It also identifies that widespread lack of recognition of historic and archaeological significance places the vast majority of convict sites places under risk of destruction.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 149.171.67.164 on Fri, ABSTRACT The excavation of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site in Sydney's historic Rocks area in 1994 was marked by the successful application of an innovative, integrated approach to urban archaeology in Australia. This approach allowed fresh explorations of many aspects of Sydney's social and cultural development, including the material world of the first generation of convict settlers. This paper examines that world within the wider context of standard and more recent interpretations of the convict colony, as well as drawing on and evaluating scholarship in the history of material life over the last 20-odd years. It offers some reflections on the idea of the worldview, the importance of local context, and the ways in which we approach the archaeology of settler societies.
Gibbs, M. 2012 The Convict System of New South Wales: A review of archaeological research since 2001
The last ten years of archaeological research on convict sites in NSW has seen a wealth of new discoveries thanks to unprecedented access to urban settings as a result of the development boom in the greater Sydney area. Not surprisingly, the direction of research has therefore largely been dictated by the nature of these mitigation projects and consequently favors greater understanding of convict urban landscapes. However, the pressure to complete successive large scale projects, limited funding for post-excavation analysis and interpretation, a growing body of incomplete reports, and the lack of an overall framework for NSW convict archaeological studies has seen an uneven advance in our knowledge of convict life since the last review by Denis Gojak in 2001. This paper reports on some of the main discoveries and describes efforts by academic and professional archaeologists to collaborate and facilitate further convict research in NSW, especially further analysis and syntheses of material, through the Archaeology of Sydney Research Group, the NSW Archaeology Online grey literature project and targeted student research.
Legacy of the ‘Fatal Shore’: The Heritage and Archaeology of Confinement in Post-Colonial Australia
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2004
Why does the theme of 'confinement' link historic-period heritage places across the continent of Australia? This article explores incarceration as not only a dominant theme in heritage-listed and archaeological sites from post-contact Australia, but also as a central underlying element in both Anglo-Australians' sense of ambiguous difference from their European origins, and indigenous Australians' painful experiences of engagement with the state. It considers the shared experiences of 'confinement' through a wide variety of registered convict, post-convict and indigenous heritage places in order to question how and why this theme has come to hold such a special resonance for different communities within modern Australia. Expanding upon Bruce Trigger's classic definitions of 'alternative archaeologies', the authors suggest this resonance has resulted in the emergence of a post-colonial form of heritage practice within this settler nation.