Aboriginal Village Sites of Southeast Australia

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Following the major publicity surrounding further research on the Aboriginal stone structures of south-west Victoria, the Australian Archaeological Association has produced a concise statement and reference list which may be used by educators and members of the public.

Summary of Research on the Stone Structures

The existence of Aboriginal village sites and complex eel-trapping systems have long been known across parts of south-west Victoria. The sites are substantial and were constructed and occupied by the region's Indigenous peoples.

These features were in place before the first European settlers arrived and it is likely they had been in existence for some considerable time before Europeans arrived; possibly for over 1,500 years.

Comprehensive references to them were made in the first years of contact. One observer described a village of between 20 to 30 huts, some accommodating up to a dozen people (Williams 1984). It was associated with a complex set of fish traps extending along a creek. Other descriptions of substantial settlements and extensive eel trapping systems can be found in similar observations of the Aboriginal people of south-west Victoria at this time (see Journals of George Augustus Robinson 1841, published by Presland in the Records of the Victorian Archaeological Survey volumes 5, 6 and 11).

These observations, along with later descriptions of sites, revealed that the villages and fishtraps were found in a range of places - from the drier farmlands near the Wimmera, south to the basalt plains of south-west Victoria and on to the rocky landscapes of more recent basalt flows such as Lake Condah.

All these places became the subject of detailed study as the emerging discipline of Australian archaeology took shape in the 1970s and 1980s. A range of people worked on these sites (cf. Coutts et al. 1978; Lourandos 1997; Wesson 1981 and Williams 1988).

The research has had a key impact on Australian archaeology and has also served as a foundation for the more recent investigation of these fascinating sites (e.g. publications by Builth and Clarke, see below).

References Cited and Further Reading

Builth, H. 1996 Lake Condah Revisited: Archaeological Constructions of a Cultural Landscape Unpublished Honours thesis, Deptartment of Aboriginal Studies, University of South Australia, Adelaide.

Builth, H. 2000 The connection between the Gunditjmara Aboriginal people and their environment: The case for complex hunter-gatherers in Australia. People and Physical Environment Research 55-56:1-18.

Builth, H. 2000 The Connection Between the Gunditjmara Aboriginal People and their Environment: The case for complex hunter-gatherers in Australia. In G. Moore, J. Hunt and L. Trevillion (eds), Environment-Behaviour Research on the Pacific Rim. Sydney: Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney.

Builth, H. 2002a Analysing Gunditjmara settlement: The use of an appropriate methodology. In G. Carver and K. Stankowski 2002 Proceedings of the Third National Archaeology Students' Conference, Adelaide, 2000. Blackwood, S.A.: Southern Archaeology.

Builth, H. 2002b The Archaeology and Socioeconomy of the Gunditjmara: A Landscape Analysis from Southwest Victoria, Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Clarke, A. 1994 Romancing the stones: The cultural construction of an archaeological landscape in the western district of Victoria. Archaeology in Oceania 29(1):1-15.

Coutts, P.J.F., R. Frank and P.J. Hughes 1978 Aboriginal engineers of the Western District, Victoria. Records of the Victorian Archaeological Survey 7.

Lourandos, H. 1997 Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Newby, J. 1994 Blackfellow Never Tired: An Investigation of the Interpretations of the Lake Condah ''House'' Sites. Unpublished Honours thesis, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra.

Nicolson, O.E. 1996 A Fish Called Condah: An Analysis of Archaeological Interpretations of the Cultural Landscapes of the Lake Condah Region in Southwest Victoria, Australia. Unpublished Honours thesis, Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Wesson, J. 1981 Excavations of Stone Structures in the Condah Area, Western Victoria. Unpublished Masters Preliminary thesis, Latrobe University, Melbourne.

Williams, E. 1984 Documentation and archaeological investigation of an Aboriginal ''village site'' in southwestern Victoria. Aboriginal History 8:173-188.

Williams, E. 1988 Complex Hunter-Gatherers: A Late Holocene Example from Temperate Australia. BAR International Series 423. Oxford.