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Archaeologists have generally been slow to recognize the value of Annales approaches to their discipline, and maritime archaeologists, in particular, have been even slower. The analytical framework used in this paper draws on applications of Annales approaches to archaeology in what is termed the "archaeology of the event." The resulting holistic approach places the specificity of the event within the wider cultural context. Furthermore, terrestrial historical archaeology has largely ignored the potential that cargo material, derived from maritime archaeological excavations, has to contribute to understandings of colonial settlement. This paper moves beyond the usual functional approaches to the analysis of the meanings of material culture. A major part of the archaeological data used here is drawn from the cargo assemblages of four postsettlement shipwrecks excavated in Australian waters during the past 30 years: Sydney Cove, James Matthews, William Salthouse, and Eglinton. This paper provides a theoretical and methodological model for the systematic analysis of consumer goods that can be used to better understand cultural aspects of colonial settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reanalysis of archaeological and documentary evidence of a vanished community (that of Casselden Place in the heart of the area known as "Little Lon" in central Melbourne) has fostered a more thoroughgoing exploration of the nature of the urban slum in Australia. There are significant questions raised by the interpretation of Casselden Place (and Little Lon) as a community during the 19th century (some of the most important of which center on the nature of assemblage composition among poor households of the period). This paper also touches on the means by which new and more complex histories of such vanished communities can be written. As such, the discussion builds on earlier methodological statements and more detailed discussions of the life histories of individuals who lived in Casselden Place (Mayne and Lawrence 1998; Mayne and Murray 1999; Mayne et al. 2000; Murray and Mayne 2002) to provide a more specific discussion of the archaeological elements of the project. The analysis of the assemblage reported here is very much a work in progress. Analysis of assemblages drawn from Casselden Place and those from the rest of Little Lon continues, reaching beyond the level of establishing artifact frequencies and exploring the meaning of the counter-intuitive patterns that are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shipwreck survivor camps are a neglected terrestrial component of maritime archaeology, usually being investigated purely as an adjunct to work on the associated wreck site. Most studies have considered these sites as individual and unique, molded by the particulars of the historic events that created them. However, by considering the history, anthropology, and archaeology of a series of Australasian survivor incidents and sites, this paper highlights common elements and themes, which allow examination of these sites within a comparative framework. These include the development of authority structures, social organization, salvage and subsistence strategies, material culture, short- and long-term rescue strategies, and the possible influences of crisis-related stress upon the decisions made by individuals and groups. Survivor camp studies are linked into the wider concerns of maritime archaeology and anthropology by placing them within the context of wreck formation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a case study investigating archaeology as a practice embedded in a complex web of culturally constructed codes of meaning or discourses. A distinctive form of discourse concerning the landscape and its rote in determining national identity characterizes Australian culture. This discourse has been central to the construction of the idea of the nation and its past: in particular, concepts of the land as hostile and empty, of the bush as the essence of Australia, and of the landscape as feminine. The paper considers the ways in which this landscape discourse has operated within historical archaeological research and heritage management and discusses the implications of these discursive relationships for past and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavation of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site in Sydney's historic Rocks area in 1994 was marked by the successful application of an innovative, integrated approach to urban archaeology in Australia. This approach allowed fresh explorations of many aspects of Sydney's social and cultural development, including the material world of the first generation of convict settlers. This paper examines that world within the wider context of standard and more recent interpretations of the convict colony, as well as drawing on and evaluating scholarship in the history of material life over the last 20-odd years. It offers some reflections on the idea of the worldview, the importance of local context, and the ways in which we approach the archaeology of settler societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]