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Stable isotope analysis of bone apatite oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) was undertaken for modern and archaeological spectacled hare wallaby (Lagorchestes conspicillatus) bone collected from an 1880s indentured labor confinement camp on Barrow Island in Western Australia. δ18O results and historical climate data indicate decreased annual precipitation during occupation of the site and provide insight into the conditions experienced by Aboriginal pearling laborers incarcerated on the offshore island. δ13C values may reflect variation in water availability or a short-term vegetation change resulting from landscape burning. This study is the first application of macropod bone apatite isotopic analysis in an Australian historical context and demonstrates its significant potential for identifying recent environmental changes to a high level of sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of Indigenous divers on nineteenth-century northwest Australian pearling luggers gave rise to a transregional apparatus of coercion, physical mistreatment, and arguably, slavery. Where accounts of conditions experienced by divers are limited to the documents of contemporary colonial men, our contribution explores a rare archaeological perspective. Zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis of the Bandicoot Bay campsite, Barrow Island, evokes an exploitative labor relationship inherited from a wider colonial process yet actively renegotiated by its participants through subsistence practices. The operation's pearlers selected a camp that advantaged concerns for labor organization and resource management while their divers seized opportunities for self-directed subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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