Human-Environment Interaction in Colonial Queensland: Establishment, Use and Abandonment of the Port of St Lawrence and Implications for the Archaeological Record

Summary

This paper explores the recursive relationships between people and the environment in a colonial port setting on the coast of Queensland, Australia. Established in c.1860, the St Lawrence port settlement and the lives of its inhabitants were mediated by the dynamic coastal environment which characterises the surrounding region. Transformations of the physical environment prompted by settlers to allow for port development changed the geomorphology of the creek environment and led to accelerated erosion at the wharf site, and following a catastrophic cyclonic event in 1874 ultimately to the abandonment of the port. This paper considers the implications of past human-environment interaction for the formation and preservation of the archaeological record at St Lawrence and contributes to an understanding of the rapidity and nature of landscape change as a consequence of colonial settlement and land-use intensification.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Landscape: Finding an Effective Scale in Urban Archaeology

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 263