Abstract
In this essay I briefly outline the essence of a new interdisciplinary research project exploring the historical archaeology of extensive pastoralism in Australia, with a particular focus on the Western Division of New South Wales. Core elements of the project span conventional ecological history (especially the impact of sheep and cattle grazing on the rangelands of the region), as well as the history of wool as a global commodity, the impact of the dispossession of indigenous people by European settlers, and the impact of new technologies such as fencing, railways, and particularly drilling for artesian water. The research project thus considers many elements of a more general inquiry into the ecological and economic impacts of the creation of both national and imperial entities (and identities) during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries around the globe.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allison, P. M. (2003). The Old Kinchega Homestead. Doing Household Archaeology in Outback NSW, Australia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 7, 161–194.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bairstow, D. (2003). A million pounds, a million acres: The pioneer settlement of the Australian agricultural company. Cremorne: The author.
Barnard, A. (Ed.). (1962). The simple fleece: Studies in the Australian Wool Industry. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Barnes, M., & Wise, G. (2003). 100 years: Celebrating 100 years of natural resource progress in the western division of New South Wales: Learning from the past and planning for the future. Dubbo: Department of Sustainable Natural Resources.
Bates, B., & Martin, S. (2012). Following Granny Moysey: Kurnu-Paakantyi stories from the Darling, Warego and Paroo. Canberra: AIATSIS.
Bean, C. E. W. (1910). On the wool track. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Bean, C. E. W. (1940). The story of ANZAC. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Berger, P. L., & Huntingdon, S. P. (2002). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Birmingham, J., & Jeans, D. (1983). The Swiss Family Robinson and the archaeology of colonisation. Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology, 1, 3–14.
Blainey, G. (1966). The tyranny of distance. How distance shaped Australia’s history. Melbourne: Sun Books.
Blake, T., & Cook, M. (2006). Great Artesian Basin: An historical overview. Brisbane: Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
Bonyhady, T. (2000). The colonial earth. Carlton: Miegunyah Press.
Butlin, N. G. (1962a). The growth of rural capital 1860–1890. In A. Barnard (Ed.), The simple fleece (pp. 322–339). Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Butlin, N. G. (1962b). Pastoral finance and capital requirements. 1860–1890. In A. Barnard (Ed.), The simple fleece (pp. 383–407). Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Butlin, N. G. (1994). Forming a colonial economy, Australia 1810–1850. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Butzer, K., & Helgren, D. (2005). Livestock, land cover and environmental history: The tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, 1820–1920. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95, 80–111.
Coman, B. (1999). Tooth and nail: The story of the rabbit in Australia. Melbourne: Text.
Condon, D. (2002). Out of the west: Historical perspectives on the western division of New South Wales. Yowie Bay: Rangeland Management Action Plan.
Contreras, D. (Ed.). (2017). The archaeology of human environment interaction. London: Routledge.
Crosby, A. W. (2004). Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe 900–1900 (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Croucher, S., & Weiss, L. (Eds.). (2011). The archaeology of capitalism in colonial contexts. New York: Springer.
Cumins, R. (1989). Scouring the clip. Boom and burn on woolscour lane. Australian Historical Archaeology, 7, 23–28.
Davidson, B. R. (1994). The development of the pastoral industry in Australia during the 19th century. In C. Chang & H. A. Koster (Eds.), Pastoralists at the periphery. Herders in a capitalist world (pp. 79–102). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Elliot, J. H. (2006). Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Frost, L. (2014). Urbanisation. In S.Ville and G. Withers (eds.) (2015). The Cambridge Economic History of Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Gill, N. (2005). Life and death in the Australian ‘heartlands’: Pastoralism, ecology and rethinking the outback. Journal of Rural Studies, 21, 39–53.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc-Szanton, C. (Eds.). (1992). Towards a transnational perspective on migration: Race, class, ethnicity, and nationalism considered. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Godwin, L., & L’Oste-Brown, S. (2012). ‘Water water everywhere’: Attempts at drought-proofing properties using surface water indrastructure in central West Queensland in the early 1880s. Australian Archaeology, 74, 55–70.
Gorman, E. (2012). Flood Country: An environmental history of the Murray-Darling Basin. Canberra: CSIRO.
Grattan, M. (2004). Back on the wool track. Milsons Point: Vantage.
Griffiths, T. (1994). Hunters and collectors. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Griffiths, T., & Robin, L. (Eds.). (1997). Ecology and empire: Environmental histories of settler societies. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Hall, M. (2000). Archaeology and the modern world: Colonial transcripts from South Africa and the Chesapeake. New York: Routledge.
Hancock, W. K. (1972). Discovering Monaro: A study of man’s impact on his environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harrison, R. (2004). Shared landscapes: Archaeologies of attachment and the pastoral industry in New South Wales. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Hume, L. J. (1962). Wool in the Australian economy 1946-1958. In A. Barnard (Ed.), The simple fleece (pp. 615–627). Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Jack, R. I. (2008). Heritage in a historic landscape, the case of Toorale Station. History, 98, 2–3.
Jupp, J. (2007). From White Australia to Woomera: the story of Australian immigration (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lawson, H. (1896). In the days when the world was wide and other verses. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Leone, M., & Potter, P., Jr. (Eds.). (1999). Historical archaeologies of capitalism. New York: Plenum.
Letnic, M. (2007). The impacts of pastoralism on the fauna of arid Australia. In C. R. Dickman, D. Lunney, & S. Burgin (Eds.), Animals of arid Australia: Out on their own (pp. 65–76). Mosman: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales.
Linge, G. J. R. (1979). Industrial awakening: A geography of Australian manufacturing 1788–1890. Canberra: ANU Press.
McKeon, G., Hall, W., Henry, B., Stone, G., & Watson, I. (Eds.). (2004). Pasture degradation and recovery in Australia’s rangelands. Learning from history. Indooroopilly: Natural Resource Sciences, Queensland Government.
Merritt, J. (1998). Wool. In G. Davison, J. Hirst, & S. Macintyre (Eds.), The Oxford companion to Australian history (pp. 690–691). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, B. (1998). Pastoral history. In G. Davison, J. Hirst, & S. Macintyre (Eds.), The Oxford companion to Australian history (pp. 499–501). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Mullins, P. (2008). ‘The strange and unusual’: Material and social dimensions of Chinese identity. Historical Archaeology, 42(3), 152–157.
Murray, T. (1992). The discourse of Australian prehistoric archaeology. In B. Attwood (Ed.), Power knowledge, and Aborigines (pp. 1–19. A special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies). Melbourne: La Trobe University Press.
Murray, T. (1996). Towards a post-Mabo archaeology of Australia. In B. Attwood (Ed.), In the age of Mabo (pp. 73–87). Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Murray, T. (2000). Digging with documents. Understanding intention and outcome in Northwest Tasmania 1825–1835. In A. Anderson & T. Murray (Eds.), Australian Archaeologist. Collected papers in honour of Jim Allen (pp. 145–160). Canberra: Coombs Academic Publishing.
Murray, T. (2004). The archaeology of contact in settler societies: An introduction. In T. Murray (ed.), The archaeology of contact in settler societies (pp. 1–18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murray, T., & Crook, P. (2005). Exploring the archaeology of the modern city: Melbourne, Sydney and London in the 19th century. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 9(2), 89–109.
Murray, T., Crook, P., & Ellmoos, L. (2003). Understanding the archaeology of the modern city. In T. Murray (Ed.), Exploring the history and archaeology of the modern city (pp. 113–136). Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of NSW.
Orser, C., Jr. (2010). Twenty-first-century historical archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 18, 111–150.
Orser, C., Jr. (1996). A historical archaeology of the modern world. New York: Plenum.
Parker, B. J., & Rodseth, L. (2006). Untaming the frontier in anthropology, archaeology and history. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Parthasarathi, P., & Riello, G. (2014). The Indian Ocean in the long eighteenth century. Eighteenth Century Studies, 48(1), 1–19.
Paterson, A. G. (2005). Early pastoral landscapes and culture contact in Central Australia. Historical Archaeology, 39(3), 28–48.
Paterson, A. G. (2010). The archaeology of historical indigenous Australia. In J. Lydon & U. Rizvi (Eds.), The handbook of postcolonialism and archaeology (pp. 165–184). Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Pearson, M. J. (1982). The excavation of the Mount Wood Woolscour, Tiboobura, New South Wales. Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2, 38–50.
Pearson, M., & Lennon, J. (2010). Pastoral Australia. Fortunes, failures and hard yakka. A historical overview 1788–1967. Canberra: CSIRO Publishing.
Riello, G. (2013). Cotton. The fabric that made the modern world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robin, L. (2007). How a continent created a nation. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Robin, L. (2009). Fleecing the nation. Journal of Australian Studies, 23, 150–158.
Robin, L., Dickman, C. R., & Martin, M. (2010). Desert channels: The impulse to conserve. Canberra: CSIRO.
Saunier, P.-Y. (2013). Transnational history. New York: Palgrave.
Silliman, S. (2005). Culture contact or colonialism? Changes in the archaeology of native North America. American Antiquity, 70(1), 55–74.
Stanniforth, M., & Nash, M. (Eds.). (2006). Maritime archaeology: Australian approaches. New York: Springer.
Ville, S. (2000). The rural entrepreneurs: A history of the stock and station agent industry in Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Ville, S., & Withers, G. (Eds.). (2015). The Cambridge economic history of Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Walker, M., & Forrest, P. (1995). Pastoral technology and the National Estate. Australia ICOMOS.
Williams, B., & Voss, B. (2008). The archaeology of Chinese immigrant and Chinese American Communities. Historical Archaeology, 42(3), 1–4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Murray, T. (2018). Towards an Archaeology of Extensive Pastoralism in the Great Artesian Basin in Australia. In: Souza, M., Costa, D. (eds) Historical Archaeology and Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90857-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90857-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90856-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90857-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)