Archaeological Aspects Of Aboriginal Settlement Of The Period 1870-1970 In The Wiradjuri Region

Abstract

This study explores the archaeology of the lives of the descendants of Wiradjuri Aboriginal people of central New South Wales, Australia (fig l.l), through an investigation of the new fonns of settlements that arose in the period following European arrival. The historical process of dislocation and resulting settlement patterns are used to reflect upon the question "Who are Wiradjuri?". The study contains a survey and analysis of over 50 Aboriginal missions, fringe camps and community settlements in southeastern Australia, geographically based on the former Wiradjuri Aboriginal language region, and of the disappearing ways of life that such places document. The study covers approximately a one hundred year time frame stretching from the consolidation of pastoral land holdings and small selections in Wiradjuri country circa 1870 to the resettlement of the region's Wiradjuri descendants into suburban houses after 1970. While the extent of the study area is based on a previous estimate of a region covered by the now-extinct Wiradjuri Aboriginal language, the study also includes several places outside the region which have strong connections with Wiradjuri people. Wiradjuri are seen not in isolation, but in the light of post-colonial time And space. Combining ethnography, archaeological survey and theoretical approaches from other disciplines, the author seeks to understand Aboriginal people's experience of home-building and urbanization in country which their ancestors knew in a very different way. Methodology for the recording and analysis of settlement is examined. The methods developed by this work differ substantially from previous archaeological and historical treatments. The approach is interdisciplinary and compares information from the written record and oral testimony with the direct observation of archaeological and architectural features, resulting in reconstructions of settlement layouts. This developed approach is then employed in the work to assist in analyzing the distribution and layout of the surveyed settlements, and to shed light on a wide range of historical and social questions. Vulnerability of Aboriginal people to other's representations of them is a central concern of the work. The approach taken here is that Aboriginal people were specific to their time and therefore cannot be understood simply by imposing the categories of the present. The author's analysis confronts many of the contradictions between cultural continuity and change, and helps create a bridge between indigenous people of the past and those of the present.

NOTE: In this work Wiradjuri has been used without the definite article. 'The purpose of avoiding the phrase "the Wiradjuri" is to eliminate the idea that there is any simple homogeneity of identification, views or lUlderstandings about what it means to be Wiradjuri or how one claims to be WiradjurL It is also to make it clear that the author makes no claim to speak for or represent all Wiradjuri and follows a practise for referring to Ngun(n)nwal in Peterson and Carr (1998: 10).