Ian J. McNiven

For over 30 years, research at the Moyjil coastal site located on the edge of Warrnambool city in southwest Victoria has progressed in the background of Australian archaeology with a focus on wheth...

Estimating the size of Indigenous populations in Australia before European colonial invasion is invaluable to truth-telling and reconciliation. Robust estimates of the population dynamics of pre-colonial Indigenous Australians are poor owing to lethal diseases, frontier and structural violence, and absence of systematic censuses. Here we review ethnographic observations, archaeological and genetic reconstructions, and modelled carrying capacity to infer Indigenous population size before colonial invasion. Congruency of the modelled and genetics-based (not historical or ethnographic accounts) estimates suggests a bootstrapped pre-colonial median of 2.22 million, or 0.29 people km⁻². This allows an estimate of the number of excess deaths in the post-colonial era. For a median pre-colonial population of 2.22 million, ~28,200 excess deaths per year (2.06 million deaths in total) would have had to occur over the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries from colonial invasion-related mortality to align with census records. These estimates speak to how the aftermath of invasion was experienced by Indigenous Australians, and recent census records show their survival and recovery since. We warn readers that the content of this study is confronting and possibly distressing.

Globally, island and coastal archaeological sites, including middens, contain enormous potential for understanding past people’s coastal lifeways, including tracking dispersal and migration pattern...

The impact of smallpox (variola) on Aboriginal communities in Australia beginning in 1789 was catastrophic and continues to cause intergenerational trauma. Historically biased perspectives and contemporary misinformation of the disease's introduction and spread impede modern-day truth-telling and efforts towards reconciliation and national healing. Understanding whether the disease entered and spread from pre-colonial Makassan (Indonesian) trade along the northern coast, or from the British First Fleet's arrival in southeastern Australia in 1788, is necessary to estimate the demographic impact. Here we developed stochastic, multipatch epidemiological models supported by systematic evaluation of historical observations to test hypotheses regarding possible disease entry points, spread rate and demographic impacts. Our models support the hypothesis that entry of the disease was in southeastern Australia. Even under ideal conditions and with higher-than-probable infection rates, simulations show that smallpox was unlikely to reach Sydney from a northern entry. We found no evidence that the 1789 epidemic was Australia-wide. Assuming 60% lethality based on global data, the loss of approximately 220,000 people would have occurred in these regions. While catastrophic to traditional Indigenous lifeways in the southeast, the disease also provided the catalyst for population decline and marginalization of Indigenous people in the face of expanding European populations. Our models indicate that it is unlikely that other parts of Australia were affected by the initial epidemic. We warn readers that the content of this study might be distressing.

In this study, we synthesize the known late Quaternary crocodylian record in Australasia through literature review and direct assessment of fossil and zooarchaeological material. The late Pleistocene record, mainly from Australia, consists of partial skeletal remains mostly referable to the extinct Mekosuchinae, with some attributable to Crocodylus. The youngest reliably dated mekosuchine fossil is ∼20 000 years old, suggesting mekosuchine decline and extinction coincided with that of other Australian megafauna. In contrast, three south-west Pacific islands—New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Fiji—were Holocene refuges for mekosuchines, whose remains occur in archaeological contexts, indicating human interaction. Their extinction followed soon after human arrival, suggesting anthropogenic influence as a potential key factor. Crocodylus johnstoni occurs in palaeontological (potentially 28 kya) and archaeological sites in Australia. Crocodylus porosus has an ambiguous fossil record potentially going back over 40 kya, but is definitively present by the Holocene. Most Crocodylus remains come from coastal sites overlapping modern ranges. Archaeological evidence supports crocodile utilization by humans in Australia, Torres Strait, and New Guinea. The fragmentary nature of the known fossil material, as well as the current lack of reliable dates, leaves many unanswered questions about the morphology, palaeobiology, and disappearance of mekosuchines.

The remains of a nineteenth century stone building at Watson’s Bay, Lizard Island, Jiigurru (Lizard Island Group), are referred to today as ‘Mary Watson’s Cottage’. As such, the ruin provides a tangible link to the young woman who fled Lizard Island in 1881 with her infant son and Chinese employee, only to die of thirst on nearby Howick No. 5 Island. The association of the extant stone structure and the historic personage of Mary Watson has become a powerful, seemingly unbreakable, association. However, an historical archaeological reassessment of the evidence provides an enriched history of the stone building that counters the current narrative. The stone building was built in 1860 by members of the Paddon and Co. bêche-de-mer station (1860-1861) during their 15 month stay on the island. Nearly two decades later, in a state of disrepair, it was rebuilt by Robert Watson and Percy Fuller of the Watson and Fuller bêche-de-mer station (1879-1881). The likelihood is that it was never the home of the Watsons. Instead, it fulfilled its original purpose as a storeroom and bêche-de-mer curing house. Yet, since the twentieth century, emotive forces have enmeshed the Mary Watson story with the visible ruin on Lizard Island as the ‘home’ she fought to defend against attack. It is time to acknowledge the building’s true past, and time to acknowledge Paddon and Co.’s stone building. By doing so, the ruin’s narrative is extended and its role in the nineteenth century bêche-de-mer industry is elevated, while continuing to honour the building’s symbolic association with Mary Watson.

The impact of smallpox (variola) on Aboriginal communities in Australia beginning in 1789 was catastrophic and continues to cause intergenerational trauma. Historically biased perspectives and contemporary misinformation of the disease’s introduction and spread impede modern-day truth-telling and subsequent reconciliation and national healing. Understanding whether the disease entered and spread from pre-colonial Makassan (Indonesian) trade along the northern coast, or from the First Fleet’s arrival in south-eastern Australia in 1788, is necessary to estimate demographic impact. We developed stochastic, multi-patch epidemiological models supported by systematic evaluation of historical observations to test hypotheses regarding possible disease entry points, spread rate, and demographic impacts. Our models suggest that entry of the disease was in south-eastern Australia. No successful simulations reached Sydney from a northern entry, even under ideal conditions and with higher-than-probable infection rates. Our model predicts time from initial entry of the disease to its extinction took between 1,200 and 1,400 days (< 4 years). Due to a high mortality rate, it appears to have been limited to the south-eastern coastal margins of Australia and along major intersecting river systems such as the Murray and Lachlan Rivers. There is no evidence that the 1789 epidemic was Australia-wide. Assuming a 60% lethality based on global data, the loss of 40,000–240,000 people would have occurred in these regions in < 4 years. While catastrophic to traditional Indigenous lifeways in the southeast, the disease also provided the catalyst for population decline and marginalisation of Indigenous people in the face of expanding European populations. It seems unlikely that other parts of Australia were affected by the initial epidemic, and we recommend revisiting previous assumptions of the subsequent impacts to Indigenous societies by other diseases and frontier violence. While there is evidence for the presence of variola matter in early colonial Sydney, we cannot yet confirm that the disease was spread deliberately. We warn readers that the content of this study is confronting and possibly distressing.