Volume 1 | 1983 - Contents

J. M. Birmingham and D. N. Jeans—Swiss Family Robinson and the archaeology of colonisations

Graham Connah—Stamp-collecting or increasing understanding

Jane P. Wesson—A first bibliography of historical archaeology in Australia

Edward Higginbotham—Excavation of a brick barrel-drain at Parramatta

Michael Pearson—Technology of whaling in Australian waters

Peter J. F. Coutts—Towards the development of colonial archaeology in New Zealand: Part 1

Luke Godwin—The life and death of a flourmill: McCrossin's Mill, Uralla

Kate Holmes—Excavations at Arltunga

R. Ian Jack—Review of K. H. Kennedy et al. Totley: a study of the silver mines at One Mile, Ravenswood District

The Swiss Family Robinson and the Archaeology of Colonisations
J.M. BIRMINGHAM and D.N. JEANS
Australian historical archaeology is now at a stage of development where it is essential that we pause and ask ourselves: 'What are we doing and why are we doing it?' In this paper Judy Birmingham of the Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney, and Denis Jeans of the Department of Geography, University of Sydney, strongly advocate an explicit problem-oriented approach to our subject matter rather than merely descriptive data collection. Clearly, Australian historical archaeology offers substantial opportunities to explain the process of colonisation, not only in the context of 19th century Australia but in a wider context also. The writers point to The Swiss Family Robinson by J. D. Wyss, first published in 1812-13, as an interesting paradigm account of that process of colonisation. They discuss the application to Australia of the colonisation model thus derived and conclude that problem-orientation around a model of this sort is one of
our first priorities.

Stamp-collecting or Increasing Understanding? : The Dilemma of Historical Archaeology
GRAHAM CONNAH
The following is the text of a paper that was presented at the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology First Conference on Historical Archaeology, held in Sydney on 29-30 October 1981. In this paper Graham Connah of the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of New England, identifies what he regards as a dilemma presently facing Australian historical archaeology. On the one hand, there is an urgent need for historical archaeologists to record rapidly vanishing data; and on the other hand, there is the necessity for historical archaeologists to problem-orient their research if it is really to increase our overall understanding of Australian history. In an attempt to come to terms with this problem, the writer reviews his own contributions to Australian historical archaeology and assesses the extent to which he has been able to compromise in the face of this dilemma.

Towards the Development of Colonial Archaeology in New Zealand: Part 1
PETER J. F. COUTTS
In this, the first of two papers, Peter Coutts, Director of the Victoria Archaeological Survey, writes about part of his work in New Zealand some years ago. In New Zealand, as also in Australia, historical archaeologists: are faced with the problem of constructing a usable data base, comprising both documentary and archaeological material, on which future research workers can draw. In the following paper this task is attempted for the New Zealand building industry in the 19th century. Other aspects of New Zealand historical archaeology will be examined in a subsequent paper. The author discusses building materials and their sources and examines the way that the availability of these materials influenced building, particularly house-building, in New Zealand during the 19th century. He shows also how fluctuations in the building industry correlated with economic booms and depressions.

The Life and Death of a Flourmill: McCrossin's Mill, UraIla
LUKE GODWIN
To varying extents old buildings are historical documents. In the following paper Luke Godwin of the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of New England, discusses his recent investigations of McCrossin's Mill, a late 19th century flourmill at Uralla in northern New South Wales. He sees the construction of the mill and the material remains of its working life, closure and subsequent use, as a reflection of the economic history of New England, in particular of the history of the former flour and wheat industry of this area. Furthermore, he sees the life and death of this mill as part of a changing economic pattern in Australia, in which flourmilling, like some other industries, gradually became concentrated in the main cities. The millstones of small country mills like McCrossin's were unable to produce a flour that could compete with that of the steel roller mills of the big cities and, because the country millers could not afford to adopt the new technology, their mills were doomed to closure.

The Excavation of a Brick Barrel-drain at Parramatta, N.S.W.
EDWARD HIGGINBOTHAM
One of the most important contributions that can be made by historical archaeology is to throw light on aspects of the past neglected by most historians. Drains, for instance, have tended to be ignored by traditional scholarship. Yet the development of drainage systems of one sort or another was extremely important to the occupants of Australia's towns and cities during the 19th century. In the following paper Edward Higginbotham, a consultant archaeologist in Sydney, discusses his excavation of a part of what must be one of Australia's earliest drains: a brick storm water drain built under Parramatta during the 1820s. As he explains in his paper, this drain must have played a very important part in the development of Parramatta, the centre of which had poor natural drainage. Indeed, the drain continues to function along most of its course and it is particularly encouraging to learn that a section of the excavated part is to be preserved on display to the public.

Excavations at Arltunga, Northern Territory
KATE HOLMES
The White Range settlement on the Arltunga Goldfield must have been as remote a spot as any group of miners could have found in Australia in 1903, the high point of its history. Although supplies arrived only at two or three month intervals, and had to be carried from far-off Oodnadatta by camel and horse-teams, it was nevertheless at White Range that John Wilson set up his store and that Patrick O'Neil (and his wife) apparently set up his billiard table! In the following paper Kate Holmes, of Alice Springs, discusses the light that her recent excavations have thrown on life at this remote settlement. Given the climate of the area, it must have been a harsh existence living in the tiny roughly-built huts of this settlement. Yet even here, amongst the excavated artefactual evidence, are objects that were manufactured in Paris, New York, and Lincoln in England.
It seems that however remote the spot, the baggage of European culture got there.

The Technology of Whaling in Australian Waters in the 19th Century
MICHAEL PEARSON
This study of the technology of the whaling industry in 19th century Australia originated as a part of a wider continuing research project into whaling in southern N.S. W. It is necessary to be aware of the technology and the artifacts involved in order to understand the surviving artifacts of the industry, both in a museum and an archaeological context, to understand the technology of the sites being studied, and to understand the economic implications of the industry both locally and in the colony as a whole. Because shore-based and ship-based whaling were very closely linked in the 19th century, both in their commercial operation and in their technology, it is necessary to look at these two aspects of the industry in order to arrive at an overview of whaling techniques and artifacts. The following paper by Michael Pearson, Historian in the N.S. W. National Parks and Wildlife Service, looks at this technology, its sources, and the hardware associated with it.

A First Bibliography of Historical Archaeology in Australia
JANE P. WESSON
Bibliographies are a basic working tool for researching or teaching any subject, or merely for following up a casual interest. The person who undertakes to construct a bibliography, however, must have courage indeed. There will always be users of the end-product who will complain that it is incomplete or inaccurate or both. The proof of the bibliography, like the pudding, is in the eating! Jane Wesson, who has produced the following bibliography, is very conscious of these things. She invites interested readers, who discover that their favourite reference is missing, to send it in so that we can publish an addendum in a later volume of this journal. Indeed, the editor would also propose that all readers publishing their own material should send in lists of references to their latest publications at regular intervals. In this way we could provide an ongoing bibliographic service. The editor suggests that all references for inclusion be sent to him in the first instance.

Cultural Resource Management, a View from Port Arthur Historic Site
BRIAN J. EGLOFF
The following is a rewritten version of a paper that was presented at the Second Annual Conference of the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology, held in Sydney in October 1982. In this paper Brian Egloff, of the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service, examines the subject of cultural resource management, in the light of his experiences as manager of the Port Arthur Conservation Project. He demonstrates that cultural resource management involves collaboration between a number of disciplines, of which archaeology is only one. Participants in conservation projects like that at Port Arthur need special skills and experience that differ from those of their academic colleagues. They also need to work within a management framework that will vary from project to project and should indeed be specially designed to suit each individual case.

Ah Toy's Garden: A Chinese Market-Garden on the Palmer River Goldfield, North Queensland
IAN JACK, KATE HOLMES and RUTH KERR
The Chinese on the Palmer River goldfield of North Queensland from the 18l0s onwards were involved in market gardening as well as mining. This paper examines in detail the history and archaeology of one such garden occupied by Chinese from 1883 until 1934. The results of an archaeological survey of the garden area, including habitation sites, graves and an irrigation system, and excavation of the principal Chinese house-site and several rubbish dumps, are analysed in the context of documentary and oral evidence. The exotic nature of plants and artefacts (including many imported bottles) is emphasised along with the evidence for improvisation in this hostile environment. The authors of this paper are Ian Jack of the Department of History, University of Sydney, New South Wales; Kate Holmes of the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory; and Ruth Kerr of the Queensland State Archives.

The Convict Road Station Site at Wisemans Ferry: an Historical and Archaeological Investigation
GRACE KARSKENS
In examining the contribution of the convicts to Australia's early material history, archaeologists and architectural historians usually focus on impressive, durable structures such as public buildings and bridges. The convict road station site at Wisemans Ferry presents an alternative record. It comprises the remains of the temporary, rough dwellings of the convict gangs which constructed the Great North Road between 1826 and 1836, and it is particularly valuable because of the absence of detailed written records dealing with such accommodation. The site was recently acquired by the New South Wales State Government, and arrangements are being made for its protection and eventual public presentation. In this paper Grace Karskens, Historic Buildings Research Officer for the National Trust of Australia (N.S. W), examines the development of road-gang accommodation in the 1820s and 1830s and seeks to interpret the above-ground remains in the essential historical context.

The Archaeology of Rubbish or Rubbishing Archaeology: Backward Looks and Forward Glances
J.V.S. MEGAW
In this paper, originally prepared as the concluding contribution to the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology's 1982 conference on 'Talking rubbish: or what does archaeology mean to the historian?', Vincent Megaw, the Society's first Vice-President, offered a semi-autobiographical and historical answer to the question posed by the conference title, citing examples from the United Kingdom, the United States of America and, of course, Australia.

The Excavation of the Mount Wood Woolscour, Tibooburra, New South Wales
MICHAEL PEARSON
In this paper the author, who is Historian in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, reconstructs the little-known process of station-based woolscouring from documentary and archaeological evidence. It is argued that the relatively late survival of this form of scouring in western New South Wales resulted primarily from severely limited transport facilities. The considerable variation in scour design, evident in the literature and at Mount Wood, is attributed to individual adaptations to environmental constraints, primarily the availability of water and building materials. The economics of woolscouring in different environments is discussed and questions raised for further research.

Innovation in the Manufacture of Salt in Eastern Australia: The 'Thorn Graduation' Process
BRIAN ROGERS
Salt production in nineteenth-century Australia was often based on the evaporation of sea-water by boiling. This required large quantities of fuel because of the low salt-content of sea-water, and there were obvious advantages in pre-concentrating the brine before boiling. Although solar evaporation was a well-established way of doing this, a handful of Australian manufacturers attempted to use the 'thorn graduation' process, in which water was evaporated from the brine by trickling it through high walls of brushwood. In this paper Brian Rogers, of the Institute of Advanced Education, University of Wollongong, shows that this was a technology with a long history at salt springs in continental Europe but that its use in eastern Australia for concentrating sea-water appears to have been a significant innovation. The author suggests that the lack of success of this process in Australia resulted as much from economic factors as from any technological shortcomings.

A First Bibliography of Historical Archaeology in Australia Continued
JANE P. WESSON
Keeping up-to-date with written material in the field of Australian historical archaeology remains a difficult problem. For this reason, Jane Wesson has updated her bibliography that was published in Volume 1 of this journal. Two particular difficulties continue to bedevil the task of bibliographer in this subject. First, how does one define historical archaeology? Second, what does one do about unpublished 'report' material? The first of these questions would probably be answered slightly differently by each individual bibliographer but the second is a simple matter of deciding whether to restrict the entries to formally published material or to include such unpublished material as one happens to know about. Strictly the first policy would be most appropriate but this would exclude much material of use both to researchers and to contract archaeologists. For this reason it is the second policy that is adopted here.

People in the Landscape: A Biography of Two Villages
J.H. WINSTON-GREGSON
Interpreting the Australian rural landscape is presently an uncommon skill. While developing an archaeological test for historical and geographical locational models, the author, a consultant archaeologist based in Canberra, discovered a string of deserted villages in the eastern Riverina. This paper summarises the historical material about two of the villages to indicate the scope of data that may be overlooked by other disciplines but rediscovered by archaeologically guided research. The villages were a forgotten element of settlement that reflected both the regional struggle for land ownership and the lines of power crucial to the outcome of that struggle. Archaeology can
substantively affect colonial settlement studies.

Terrestrial Photogrammetric Survey of Arltunga Historic Reserve, Northern Territory
M. ZEMAN and B. BLAKEMAN
The Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory has recently funded a study for conservation and presentation of historic sites at Arltunga Historic Reserve, Northern Territory. Support for this project has come from the National Estate Programme. The study concentrated upon investigative and recording work in the field as a preliminary to a capital works programme. Previous documentation work at Arltunga was carried out by conventional surveying techniques. While they may have been adequate in establishing a useful initial record of the various sites within the reserve, the resultant documentation was not precise and detailed enough to serve as a basis for their conservation. The vast number of building remains, the irregularity of their construction and their fragile nature, together with the higher recording accuracy requirements, called for the employment of a systematic and non-contact measuring method. Consequently a substantial terrestrial photogrammetric survey was carried out as a part of the study. In the following a detailed description of the photogrammetric scheme is given.

Towards the Development of Colonial Archaeology in New Zealand. Part 2: Early Settlement Patterns in Southern New Zealand
PETER J. F. COUTTS
This paper is concerned primarily with determining the forms of domestic dwellings associated with Maori, sealing and whaling settlements in southern New Zealand, as well as with the exploration of some of the factors that influenced settlement location. Maori influences on European domestic architecture and vice versa are examined also. Relevant historical sources are surveyed and the author, who is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, summarises the results of his own archaeological researches in southern New Zealand. The aim of this exercise is to establish criteria that will enable archaeological manifestations of these settlements to be identified and interpreted. The results of the study indicate that very little is known about the three forms of settlement generally or in relation to specific settlement sites. The evidence suggests that there were considerable degrees of adoption by both Maori and Pakeha which in some instances (eg. sealing settlements) could have created complex archaeological records that may be difficult to interpret.

Excavation Techniques in Historical Archaeology
EDWARD HIGGINBOTHAM
This paper discusses the development of excavation techniques in England and their application to historical archaeology in Australia. Edward Higginbotham, a consultant archaeologist in Sydney, applies his experience of excavations in both countries to a critical analysis of various excavation methods, including test-pits, trial-trenches, the grid method, and area excavation. The advantages, efficiency, technical limitations and sample bias of each are compared, and the use of the grid method is questioned. The author argues that grid excavation resulted in serious misunderstanding of archaeological evidence in England, and gives two examples, one from the Romano-British, the other from the Anglo-Saxon period. The failure of the grid method was demonstrated only by improved excavation technique. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship of excavation to research design, the conservation of the archaeological resource, historical evidence and extant remains.

The Soils in the Old Vineyard at Camden Park Estate, Camden, New South Wales
A. J. KOPPI, B. G. DAVEY and J. M.BIRMINGHAM
In this paper the authors, Tony Koppi and Brian Davey from the Department of Soil Science and Judy Birmingham from the Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney, describe the disturbed soils found in the old vineyard at Camden Park Estate. By comparison with the local undisturbed soil, the vineyard soils appear to have been trenched. The topsoil and possibly organic matter were placed in the bottom of the trench and then the various layers of the subsoil were mixed together and placed on top. Calcareous sandstone fragments, from another place, were mixed into the surface and have raised the pH of some of the soils. The fragments may also have served to protect the grapes from splashed mud. The historical evidence suggests that the preparation of the vineyard was carried out by vinedressers from the Rhine.

The Diagnosis of Prefabricated Buildings
MILES LEWIS
South-eastern Australia has more identifiable surviving specimens of mid-nineteenth century pre- fabrication than any other area of the world, and more are being discovered regularly. Only recently have they been recognised as candidates for conservation, and only still more recently have they been subjected to anything approaching systematic study. They are diverse in materials, construction and origin, and commonly quite difficult to distinguish from conventional buildings. In this paper Miles Lewis, an architectural historian who teaches in the Department of Architecture and Building at the University of Melbourne, describes those characteristics which may suggest that a building is prefabricated and which may, in some cases, indicate the country of origin or even the individual manufacturer responsible.

Additions to the Bibliography of Historical Archaeology in Australia
MICHAEL PEARSON
These additions to the bibliography compiled by Jane Wesson, which appeared in the first two volumes of this journal, have been compiled by Michael Pearson of the Australian Heritage Commission. The same problem of defining the field of historical archaeology has faced this bibliographer as faced the original compiler. The approach to this update of the bibliography has been to include recently published references, a range of earlier publications including some not strictly archaeological but directly relating to sites and matters of relevance to archaeologists, and a number of references to New Zealand publications and theses. In addition to this, a proportion of the entries are unpublished reports which are generally available only in the libraries of the departments or clients who commissioned them. These are included as they still constitute a major proportion of the documented historical archaeological work in Australia.

A Guide to Locating Settlements in Rural New South Wales
J. H. WINSTON-GREGSON
This paper describes a model for predicting the location of rural settlements. The author is a consultant archaeologist specialising in the historical landscape and finds models like the one described to be useful in combatting the time constraints placed on consulting research. The model is essentially an exercise in reading the cadastral map, the paper offers guidance and a demonstration.

Early German Settlements in South Australia
GORDON YOUNG
In this paper Gordon Young. Director of the South Australian Centre for Settlement Studies, discusses the considerable impact which a small group of German settlers had on the pattern of early settlement in South Australia. He describes the way of life they brought to the colony from their Prussian homelands and its adaptation to a totally new environment. This traditional lifestyle was maintained up until the First World War because of the homogeneity of their communities and their comparative isolation from those of British settlers. Four of the first German settlements in South Australia have been studied in detail. These are Bethany in the Barossa Valley and Birdwood, Hahndorf and Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. The research has been carried out by a multi- disciplinary team of academic architects, geographers, historians and town planners from the South Australian College of Advanced Education and the South Australian Institute of Technology,
assisted by external consultants.

Hydraulic Power and Coal Loading at Newcastle Harbour, New South Wales
DAMARIS BAIRSTOW
The Hunter River Valley north of Sydney contains one of the richest known and first discovered coalfields in Australia. A series of sandstone escarpments to the south virtually isolated the Hunter from Sydney in the nineteenth century. Exploitation of the Hunter coal reserves necessitated the establishment of a port at Newcastle, at the mouth of the Hunter River. This paper traces the development of Newcastle's coal wharves on what were originally mud flats and sandbanks in the estuary and, simultaneously, the construction of the first of Australia's hydraulic power-houses built to provide power for the cranes. The author is a consultant archaeologist who has .worked in Sydney and Newcastle.

Towser's Huts, Cobar, New South Wales: Historic Ruin or Ruined History?
HAROLD BOUGHEN
The town of Cobar in western New South Wales, with its long mining and pastoral history, is an extremely fertile area for historical and archaeological investigation. One important site, located just outside the town, is Towser's Huts, the remains of a group of stone-walled buildings of unusual design, including uncharacteristic semicircular fireplaces. A local mythology has grown up about these buildings and a well-meaning but misguided attempt at restoration in the late 1960s and early 1970s was unsuccessful and placed the remainder of the ruins in jeopardy. During an investigation into the history of the site, the author, an employee of Cobar Mines Pty Ltd, uncovered an aspect of the role of the non-British immigrant in the development of rural Australia and of the mining industry in particular. From oral history, documentary evidence, and analysis of the building remains, a tantalising glimpse of one immigrant's life in an outback Australian town was obtained.

Historical Reality: Archaeological Reality. Excavations at Regentville, Penrith, New South Wales, 1985
GRAHAM CONNAH
Historical archaeology has the potential to explain archaeological process, as well as the capacity to add to the historical record. In this paper, the author, who is Professor of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of New England, discusses excavations conducted in 1985 at Regentville, near Penrith, west of Sydney. This work was carried out in conjunction with Judy Birmingham of the University of Sydney and the analysis of evidence from the site is still in progress. Regentville is the site of an imposing country mansion that formed the nucleus of an agricultural estate of the 1820s to 1840s. The present paper contrasts the extensive historical record that exists for this site, with the relatively meagre archaeological one. It is suggested that the site has more to tell us about the way archaeological sites form, than about the life and times of Sir John Jamison, who lived there.

The History and Archaeology of the North British Mine Site, Maldon, Victoria
CHRISTOPHER J. DAVEY
In this paper, Christopher Davey who is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, explains the historical and technological significance of the North British Mine Site and describes the archaeological work undertaken there. The features remaining at the site which represent a range of technologies are discussed, and their history is considered. The site is particularly important for the well preserved series of quartz roasting kilns.

Defiance, Deference and Diligence: Three Views of Convicts in New South Wales Road Gangs
GRACE KARSKENS
Until recently, both popular and learned views of convicts in colonial New South Wales alternated between the image of the ruthless, worthless and irredeemable criminal, on the one hand, and the passive recipient of dreadful, inhumane punishment, on the other. Both stereotypes deny the convict a contributory role in the development of the colony. The Great North Road, built by convict road gangs between 1826 and 1836, presents a direct material record of convict labour which challenges the historians' long-held views about men in road gangs, and demands a fresh examination of the subject. The author, a consultant historical archaeologist in Sydney, draws on a wide range of information in order to build up a picture of the world of road-gang convicts, and the rules by which it operated, as a context for understanding the archaeological record. The information encoded in the shape, quality and distribution of the extensive retaining walls is then used to give a new angle of perception on the working patterns and conditions of convicts in road gangs, and the various ways in which they responded to the opportunities and restrictions of their situation.

Conservation and Industrial Archaeology: Recent Work by the National Trust (N.S. W.)
RICHARD MACKAY
Australia has a rich and varied industrial heritage. Although numerous important sites have been preserved through well deserved state-funded conservation programmes, the future of many sites will depend on their capacity for financially viable continuing use. In this paper Richard Mackay, an archaeologist with the National Trust of Australia (N.S. W), outlines some of the work of the Trust in identification of significant industrial sites and in liaison with their owners. The paper then examines a range of case studies which demonstrate different approaches to cultural resource management. In the case of privately owned sites, such as the Canterbury Sugarworks or Mittagong Maltings, it is suggested that conservation is best achieved through encouraging imaginative re-use by sympathetic owners. Public utilities like bridges or railways, however, must usually remain in their traditional use to survive. An exception to this general situation is presented in the last case study: the adaptation of an historic railway bridge to a modern cycleway.

Bathers Bay Whaling Station, Fremantle, Western Australia
JACK McILROY
In 1984 the Western Australian Museum carried out test excavations on the site of the whaling station at Bathers Bay, Fremantle. Shore-based whaling was an important early industry in Western Australia, and the Bathers Bay station operated from 1837 to around the 1860s. It was owned by the Fremantle Whaling Company and was one of some fifteen whaling stations which were eventually to operate along the Western Australian coast. Excavations revealed the tryworks to be largely intact. Traces of the whalers' warehouse and of a substantial building, possibly their boatshed or workshop, were also uncovered, as were walls and floors of Mews Boatshed which operated in the area from about the 1860s. No trace of the whalers' jetty was found. The site is located on the shore-front in central Fremantle, in an area due for major redevelopment prior to the Bicentennial in 1988. The author is a consultant archaeologist working in Western Australia.

Marketing, Conservation and Interpretation of Historic Sites in the United States of America and the United Kingdom
HELEN TEMPLE
There is a growing tendency in America for archaeologists to market and peddle their archaeological product to an awakening public, which is responding by taking an active role in all aspects of conserving archaeological resources. Helen Temple, archaeologist with the New South Wales Department of Environment and Planning, discusses some of her observations of public archaeology in the United States of America and England, gathered while on a Churchill Fellowship in 1985. She also discusses various ways in which archaeological sites can be conserved in-situ and interpreted. Conservation in Australia is relatively new and the public, both informed and lay, is less knowledgeable and therefore less concerned about Australia's archaeological heritage. Archaeological programmes must become more publicly oriented if this trend is to be altered. While the American and English examples may not all be directly applicable, we should heed their efforts and profit from their experience.

The Archaeology of Standing Structures
MARTIN DAVIES
Although archaeologists regularly undertake investigations of standing structures, there are few texts which provide a procedural methodology to guide such work. In response to this situation, a systematic approach to the study of standing structures was developed by the author at the Port Arthur Historic Site where he was a Staff Archaeologist. This paper, which is a modified version of that approach, discusses the central importance, to all future analyses and interpretations, of determining a structure's evolutionary development. The paper equates the procedures involved in the study of structures with those followed in archaeological excavation work. The author is currently working as a consultant for the Bicentennial Programme of the National Trust of Australia (N.S. W.)

The Excavation of Buildings in the Early Township of Parramatta, New South Wales, 1790-1820s
EDWARD HIGGINBOTHAM
This paper describes the excavation of a convict hut, erected in 1790 in Parramatta, together with an adjoining contemporary out-building or enclosure. It discusses the evidence for repair, and secondary occupation by free persons, one of whom is tentatively identified. The site produced the first recognised examples of locally manufactured earthenware. The historical and archaeological evidence for pottery manufacture in New South Wales between 1790 and 1830 is contained in an appendix.

A German Potter in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, c.1850-1883
NORIS IOANNOU
Exploratory excavation and artefactual analysis of a pottery site, has indicated the range of wares produced, during the period c.1850-1883, by the immigrant German master-potter, J.G.S. Hoffmann. The author, who is a postgraduate student at Flinders University, shows how the production, glazing and firing techniques of these wares, result from an interaction of Hoffmann's culture and the South Australian environment. Thus, Hoffmann's retention of traditional forms and styles is considered as partly due to his cultural conditioning and partly as a response to a German community which avidly resisted change. Indeed, it is argued that Hoffmann's pots provide further evidence of the German settlers' active preservation of a Prussian culture, as adapted to the South Australian environment. Similarly, the restrained style of Hoffmann's pots, their stability and grace, may be viewed as expressive of the 'Old Lutherans' piety and lifestyle in general.

Archaeology from the Ice: Excavation Methods in a Frozen Hut
ANGELA McGOWAN
Recent excavations in the snow and ice that fills much of the interior of Mawson's Hut at Cape Denison in Antarctica, had to overcome unusual problems. Relatively little has been published on excavation methods appropriate to polar conditions and the author, who is based at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart, had to develop appropriate techniques to meet the special conditions of the site. She was able to demonstrate that stratigraphic excavation procedures were quite possible, in spite of the difficulties. In this paper, it is argued that mechanical methods of removing ice and snow are preferable to melting these deposits either in situ or after removal in large blocks. However, the use of an ice axe to break up solid ice does cause some damage to contained artefacts and it seems likely that some combination of digging and carefully controlled melting may eventually prove to be the best approach.

Chinese Coins Down Under: Their Role on the New Zealand Goldfields
NEVILLE A. RITCHIE and STUART PARK
The role of Chinese coins found in overseas Chinese sites has been the subject of many poorly substantiated inferences by archaeologists. In this paper the authors review the evidence from archaeological and historical sources and argue that it is highly improbable that cash were used as currency in any overseas Chinese community. On the contrary, it is argued that cash were principally imported for gambling purposes, notably as counters. Ritchie, now Regional Archaeologist, Waikato, Department of Conservation, has undertaken extensive research on Chinese miners sites in southern New Zealand. Park, is the Director of the Auckland Institute and Museum. He has published an earlier paper on a Chinese coin hoard, and was responsible for the reign and mint identifications.

The Casks from the Wreck of the William Salthouse
MARK STANIFORTH
Casks were the most common containers for the shipment of bulk commodities during the nineteenth century. Cooperage, the trade of making casks, has declined during the twentieth century to the point where two of the three branches of the trade have ceased to exist. The remains of the cask cargo found on the wrecksite of the William Salthouse provided an opportunity to study cooperage technology, the marking of casks, cask contents and stowage methods in a nineteenth-century sailing vessel. This paper discusses some of the results obtained during a short test excavation of the wrecksite in 1983. By comparing the archaeological evidence with the historical document it has been possible to demonstrate the use of sub-standard components and poor quality workmanship. The increasing need for legislation to regulate standards and to ensure quality control is discussed. The author was the State Maritime Archaeologist with the Victoria Archaeological Survey, and is currently a curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum.