‘Gold Rush Victoria was as wasteful as we are today‘, The Conversation, 29 June 2017
Archaeological excavations across Melbourne have uncovered masses of rubbish dating back to the Gold Rush era of the 1850s and 1860s. Artefacts recovered from sites within Melbourne show that the city’s Gold Rush era occupants were incredibly wasteful.
Rubbish went under floors, into rubbish tips, into disused pit toilets, and other places, often as upwardly people dumped stuff as they acquired better stuff. The article concludes with some general remarks about consumer culture, then and now.
On another rubbish tip, artefacts possibly associated with Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant, Boer War murderer and conman – and victim – have turned up.
