This year’s Australian Historical Association conference is being convened by the Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History at Federation University in Ballarat, with the theme ‘From Boom to Bust’.

One of our project managers, Will Anderson, will be presenting a paper titled ‘Archaeology and pre-Colonial Landscape History: Boom before Contact in the Western District of Victoria’.

Will’s paper draws on the results of excavations we undertook at Trawalla, near Beaufort, which revealed intensive Aboriginal occupation across the valley of Mount Emu Creek. In particular, it compares archaeological information with written sources, especially the diary of Katherine Kirkland who lived at Trawalla in 1839-1841.

The draft programme for the conference has just been released; the session on Historical Archaeology is sandwiched between sessions on ‘Heritage Management Frameworks for Historic Sites’ and ‘World Heritage, History and Archaeology’ in what sounds like a very interesting day of presentations.

More information on the AHA Conference, including the draft program can be found at the conference website.