Australian Colonial Land Settlement

Australia is the only continent besides Antarctica where the European settlement occurred only within the industrial era. Industrial archaeology is potentially an ideal discipline from which to understand the settlement of Australia, given that industrial production was a present and defining factor of all historical activities undertaken after 1788. This chapter considers how archaeological perspectives have provided an understanding of land settlement, with a focus on recent studies. Historical archaeology (of which industrial archaeology is sometimes a subset) has been present in Australia only since the 1970s, while other disciplines such as geography and history have been providing information about colonial land settlement for a longer period of time. This chapter argues that collaboration across disciplines is an effective method that should characterize future work, and suggests future challenges for archaeologies of industry as we consider the implications of the Anthropocene. Additionally, the chapter advocates that previously separate categories of human society and the environment can be effectively framed together at various different spatial levels.