Just passing through: the archaeology of settlements en route to the Eastern Goldfields, Western Australia

[Truncated abstract] In 1892 gold was discovered near what became Coolgardie, Western Australia. The subsequent gold rush brought people from all over Australia and the world to the newly established towns of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It is a semi-arid region and daily life was dictated by a constant search for both water and gold. To service the increasing population of the Eastern Goldfields, a telegraph line, railway line and water pipeline, known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, were built. The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, designed by C.Y. O'Connor, is a pipeline that pumps water from Mundaring, east of Perth, to Kalgoorlie, 560 km to the east, and was one of the major engineering feats of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result of people travelling to the Goldfields and the infrastructure built, small settlements were established along the migration and settlement corridor between Perth and Kalgoorlie. Some were occupied for a short period of time while others are still occupied today. The population at these sites was mostly transient, with people staying briefly before they moved on. The types of settlements included railway stations, pump stations, water condenser sites and workers' camps, and provided stopping points along the route to the Goldfields supplying food, and more importantly, water. In the late nineteenth century the Eastern Goldfields were a frontier and were settled in a period of British colonialism and colonisation. These factors, along with the transient nature of the sites and the people that lived there, affected the types of settlements that developed and the material culture used. As well as the range of uses, the nine settlement sites studied in detail were occupied for varying periods, and yet the archaeological pattern was very similar. There has been a great deal of work on mining sites in Australia and the United States, looking at both technology and, more recently, the social aspects. However there has not been as much work done on other types of sites on the frontier, such as workers' camps and stopping points. The settlements on the way to the Eastern Goldfields were established in an important period of Western Australia's history. They provide an insight into what life was like in this harsh environment and how people adapted to living in the region. The sites were compared with similar sites in Australia and the United States, such as those occupied during the same time period; were isolated; had specific functions such as mining and workers' camps; or were in a similar environment. As a result of the pattern observed in the Mundaring-Kalgoorlie migration and settlement corridor, and the comparison with other sites, a model for identifying short-term workers' camps in the archaeological record was developed. Temporary sites are characterised by few formal structures, very little building material, a high number of cans, a low number of ceramics and a low number of non-essential or 'luxury' items...