Aboriginal Fishtrap, Lake Alexandrina, South Australia

Fish traps and mazes were a widespread source of food for across wide areas of inland Australia. This paper provides an overview of the type, dating and distribution of traps and mazes along with the distribution of associated fish species and compares Australian trap designs to other parts of the world.

Queensland Archaeological Research Vol 14:1-58, 2011

A Queensland state-wide review of coastal and inland fish traps and weirs is undertaken. More than 179 sites are described. For coastal Queensland, it is demonstrated that traps with multiple pens are common in the Torres Strait and at a limited number of locations in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Most traps and weirs south of Torres Strait and the Gulf are isolated structures, with traps in most cases having a single pen. Walls of traps are most often in the shape of an arc and found at points and estuaries and only occasionally on open beaches. Some traps and weirs on the coast were built or used by non-Indigenous people, including South Sea Islanders. Less information could be located on traps and weirs of inland Queensland, which appear to have included many organic traps and weirs. It was found that weirs are common east of the Great Dividing Range, while traps were common to the west. The review draws heavily on unpublished data and reports held by the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. The use of this information along with published sources, theses, explorer's diaries and ethnographic accounts allows a comprehensive overview of available information. Fish traps in particular are often found in coastal zones subject to development pressure and this work provides a baseline resource to generate discussion about research and management of this significant site type in these zones.

A Queensland state-wide review of coastal and inland fish traps and weirs is undertaken. More than 179 sites are described. For coastal Queensland, it is demonstrated that traps with multiple pens are common in the Torres Strait and at a limited number of locations in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Most traps and weirs south of Torres Strait and the Gulf are isolated structures, with traps in most cases having a single pen. Walls of traps are most often in the shape of an arc and found at points and estuaries and only occasionally on open beaches. Some traps and weirs on the coast were built or used by non-Indigenous people, including South Sea Islanders. Less information could be located on traps and weirs of inland Queensland, which appear to have included many organic traps and weirs. It was found that weirs are common east of the Great Dividing Range, while traps were common to the west. The review draws heavily on unpublished data and reports held by the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. The use of this information along with published sources, theses, explorer's diaries and ethnographic accounts allows a comprehensive overview of available information. Fish traps in particular are often found in coastal zones subject to development pressure and this work provides a baseline resource to generate discussion about research and management of this significant site type in these zones.

Archaeology in Oceania, 2022

Fish traps and fish weirs built by Indigenous people in the Barwon-Darling River system of the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), southeastern Australia, are an important component of their traditional social, spiritual and economic systems. The celebrated Brewarrina stone fish traps (Ngunnhu) on the Barwon River are the largest and best documented stone fish traps in the Basin. However, there has been minimal research on the many other stone fish traps in this system. This paper focusses on the in-stream stone fish traps downstream of Brewarrina along the Darling (Baaka) River, some still partly extant, remembered, or documented in historical material. Wooden and earthen bank fish traps and weirs, while not as enduring and archaeologically visible as stone fish traps, were frequently used on the Darling (Baaka) floodplain lakes, swamps and billabongs. Archaeological evidence, traditional cultural knowledge and historical materials are utilised to document the complex social processes and modification of landscapes associated with fish traps and weirs. By demonstrating that Barkandji were active and successful managers of the river and its ecology prior to colonisation, and that much of this cultural knowledge is retained by current generations, the authors make a case for them to renew their custodianship and a decision-making role in water management.

At the time of European invasion the Aboriginal people of the Swan Coastal Plain were engaged in a complex series of social economic and ceremonial networks which required regular face-to-face gatherings. The annual winter meeting at Barragup on the Serpentine River appears to have been one of the most important of these events, sustained by the operation of a wooden mungah fi shtrap which allowed harvesting of sea mullet (Mugil cephalus) and Australian salmon (Arripis truttaceus). This paper provides historical material on the nature and operation of the Barragup mungah and the associated gathering as part of an appreciation of the research of the ethnohistorical research by Sylvia Hallam.

Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2011

Debate regarding the complexity of Aboriginal societies in south-west Victoria began in the late nineteenth century and continues to the present day. One of the bases of a transegalitarian society is the production of a stable food surplus and in this region such a surplus is related to the construction and management of extensive water control and eel trapping systems. However, such systems have to date either been described in nineteenth-century ethnohistoric documents, or recorded and mapped in the late twentieth century by archaeologists, but not both. This paper provides full publication, authentication and analysis of a nineteenth century map and accompanying text documenting a system of Gunditjmara eel traps and associated water control features near the Lake Condah outlet that has been ground-truthed by recent archaeological research. This is the only historic map of such features known to exist, and it is accompanied by a detailed explanatory commentary on their functioning as a system. Much of the value of the map and text lies in their unique creation on the basis of observation in combination with information obtained from traditional owners. The documents provide invaluable information on the specific operation of features at the Lake Condah outlet and on the operation of such water control and eel management systems in general, as well as crucial evidence regarding the economic basis for transegalitarian features of the ethnographic Gunditjmara.

2008

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012

Direct dating of stone-walled fishtraps has been a methodological challenge in archaeology and is generally considered insurmountable. Dating is usually associative, linking traps to local archaeological sites and geomorphological features of known age. Limited excavation of sediments burying the lower sections of stone-walled fishtrap features has been previously undertaken with limited success. Recent fine-grained excavation and comprehensive AMS dating and analysis of channel in-fill sediments associated with an elaborate freshwater fishtrap complex at Lake Condah, western Victoria, yields reliable insights into the phased construction and use of the feature. An early phase of basalt bedrock removal to create a bifurcated channel was subsequently in-filled with flood sediments incorporating stone artefacts and charcoal dated to c.6600 cal BP. After a hiatus, basalt blocks were added to the sides of the channel to create multi-tiered walls within the past 600e800 years. This site provides the first direct insights into the antiquity of the elaborate fishtrapping and aquaculture system developed by Aboriginal people in the Lake Condah region, and may represent one of the world's oldest known fishtraps.

1987

Archaeology in Oceania, 2012

Over 580 fish species are known for Port Jackson, site of the first British colony of New South Wales. When the British arrived in January 1788 they encountered Aboriginal people who gained a substantial part of their diet from fish. Aboriginal fishing technologies (e.g. spears, shell fishhooks and small canoes) were documented by colonial writers. The British brought metal fishhooks, seine nets and larger boats, and after AD1788 fishing was important to both Aboriginal people and colonists. Given the diversity of fish in Port Jackson, and differences between Aboriginal and colonial fishing technologies, our paper discusses archaeological and documentary evidence for the impact of technology on the types of fish caught by Aboriginal people and colonists before and after AD1788. We compare archaeological fish bones from Aboriginal sites in coastal Sydney with those from the Quadrant historical site in Broadway, Sydney, and discuss methodological challenges raised by these kinds of analyses for Sydney regional archaeology. Technology explains some fish bone assemblage variability but colonisation, cultural attitudes, commercialisation and urbanism are also important.