The archaeology of Anthropocene rivers: water management and landscape change in 'Gold Rush' Australia

Lawrence, Susan; Davies, Peter; Turnbull, Jodi

doi:10.26181/24657219.v1

The archaeology of Anthropocene rivers: water management and landscape change in 'Gold Rush' Australia

journal contribution

posted on 2023-11-29, 06:12 authored by Susan LawrenceSusan Lawrence, Peter DaviesPeter Davies, Jodi TurnbullJodi Turnbull

Future scientists seeking evidence of the Anthropocene on a planetary scale will find a series of structurally similar deposits dating to within the same few thousand years at multiple locations around the world. It will be evident that they were produced by a global human drive to exploit the Earth's mineral wealth. The impact and the evidence left by this phenomenon in the 'Gold Rush' region of Victoria, Australia are particularly clear. Using a multi-scalar approach, the authors examine the extent and significance of changes resulting from water management and mining processes, which, in some cases, resulted in the creation of new landscapes far beyond the mining district.

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council. We thank Ian Rutherfurd, Ewen Silvester, Darren Baldwin and Mark Macklin for discussions about the new project. David Frankel and the anonymous reviewers provided valuable critical feedback in the preparation of this paper.

History

Publication Date

2016-10-01

Journal

Antiquity

Volume

90

Issue

353

Pagination

15p. (p. 1348-1362)

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISSN

0003-598X

Rights Statement

© The Authors 2016. This article has been published in a revised form in Antiquity http://doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.105. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND licence. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed.