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Under the Boards: Archaeological Site Formation Processes at the Commissariat Store, Brisbane

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Abstract

The study of archaeological site formation processes, although routinely undertaken for prehistoric sites, is only carried out in historical archaeology in a limited way. Understanding the processes which formed the archaeological record of a site is an important first step towards developing justifiable inferences about past behavior and past societies regardless of the age of the site. This paper identifies and examines the cultural and non-cultural processes that formed the archaeological record at the Commissariat Store, Brisbane. The history of the site, from its construction in 1829 as part of the Moreton Bay penal settlement to the present, is examined and the expected impacts and processes on the archaeological record are identified. Archaeological evidence from the salvage excavation of the site undertaken in 1978 and 1979 is analyzed to identify the cultural and non-cultural site formation processes. This study identifies the presence of cultural formation processes including discard, loss, abandonment and re-use from an examination of the historical and archaeological evidence. Non-cultural formation processes at work in the site include faunalturbation, floralturbation, flooding, and aquaturbation.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks go to Jon Prangnell from the School of Social Science, University of Queensland, for his guidance, advice and encouragement in undertaking this research. I would also like to thank Richard Robins, formerly of the Queensland Museum, for early discussions on the archaeology of the Commissariat Store and for initiating the idea for this research. Other members of the Queensland Museum have also provided valuable assistance. I would like to thank Michael Quinnell for providing access to the Commissariat Store artifact collections and archaeological documentation, and Daphne Woodhouse for sharing with me her work and knowledge of the artifacts from the Commissariat Store. Thanks also to Sean Ulm for getting this paper going and for his helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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  1. Sinclair Knight Merz, 452 Flinders Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia

    Karen J. Murphy

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  1. Karen J. Murphy
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Correspondence to Karen J. Murphy.

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Murphy, K.J. Under the Boards: Archaeological Site Formation Processes at the Commissariat Store, Brisbane. Int J Histor Archaeol 17, 546–568 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-013-0230-5

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