Event: Pizza Talk: "Towards an Archaeology of Extensive Pastoralism in the Great Artesian Basin in Australia"

Speaker: Dr. Timothy Murray, Charles La Trobe Professor of Archaeology, La Trobe University

In this talk, Dr. Murray will briefly outline the essence of a new interdisciplinary research project exploring the historical archaeology of extensive pastoralism in Australia, with a particular focus on the Western Division of New South Wales. Core elements of the project span conventional ecological history (especially the impact of sheep and cattle grazing on the rangelands of the region), as well as the history of wool as a global commodity, the impact of the dispossession of indigenous people by European settlers, and the impact of new technologies such as fencing, railways, but particularly drilling for artesian water. The research project thus considers many elements of a more general inquiry into the ecological and economic impacts of the creation of both national and imperial entities (and identities) during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries around the globe.