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Canberra Today 20°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Society’s date with destiny

THE Canberra Archaeological Society has chosen an interesting date to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year.

“We’re having a dinner on the Earth’s birthday,” says president Helen Cooke.

According to a piece of historical detective work published in 1650 by Ireland’s Anglican Archbishop James Ussher, God created the planet (and presumably the whole universe) on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC.

“Our guest speaker, Prof Colin Groves, is a bit of an expert on Ussher and he’s going to explain how his work relates to modern archaeology,” explains Cooke, “so I think he’ll be a very amusing speaker.”

Rest assured, Ussher is not a figure of ridicule for scientists such as Groves, a professor of biological anthropology at the ANU, even though they don’t believe the archbishop got it right.

According to Cooke, Ussher’s work is respected for what it was, in the context of his time.

“Well, look, he did his best, you know,” says Helen. “He worked it out through the Bible and if you take the Bible as the literal truth, it was a pretty astonishing attempt in a way.”

Other distinguished guests of the celebration include the Society’s founders, Emeritus Professor Jack Golson, Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa and Dr Noel Barnard, as well as 88-year-old John Mulvaney, who is widely known as “the father of Australian archaeology” and got involved with CAS in the early days.

“Right from the beginning they were concerned about local archaeological sites, and the fact they were being destroyed in those days without any heritage protection,” says Helen, as she shows the “CityNews” team around the ruins of John Crinigan’s stone hut in Amaroo.

The site was saved from destruction in the early 1990s by Crinigan’s descendents, particularly Marilyn Folger, who enlisted the help of CAS and is now a life member. The family successfully petitioned then-Heritage Minister Bill Wood to save the ruins when they noticed plans for a new stormwater development would wipe it out, and the conservation work that followed is among the Society’s proudest achievements.

“The original plans for this area, I think, showed a trunk sewer going through it,” says Helen.  “At the time it was just a huge pile of rocks and blackberries and snakes.”

The site of the hut, which was built in the 1840s, is perfectly located beside a deep pool of permanent water in Ginninderra Creek and still has a few fruit trees standing from its original orchard.

“The descendents of John Crinigan – and there are many of them – always knew it was their site and they used to come back every year when the fruit was ripe, have a picnic and pick the fruit,” Helen explains.

Once a nest of brown snakes and a thicket of blackberries were carefully removed, the archaeological investigation yielded a treasure trove of artifacts that tell of Crinigan’s rather successful life in the early community of Ginninderra, which grew up around the estate of the absentee landlord George Palmers, and had its village centre where Gold Creek is today.

The volunteers found “stacks and stacks” of stuff under the rubble during its restoration including signs of wealth-like jewellery, toys and pearl studs from a fancy dress shirt, as well as leather shoes, clay pipes, prints, crockery and slate pencils. Animal bones show that for dinner the Crinigan family ate pork, mutton and rabbit as well as natives such as possum and koala, which at some point became known locally as “Gundaroo duck”, says Helen.

Helen and the other volunteers working on site were surprised to find the home had three rooms and two fireplaces.

“That was big living in those days and this guy was a convict, so he didn’t have a lot of money when he started out,” says Helen, explaining that there’s just no other site quite like it in Canberra.

Assuming all goes to plan, some of Crinigan’s descendents will be there to help the Canberra Archaeological Society celebrate its 50th birthday on the Earth’s 6017th.

 

The Canberra Archaeological Society’s 50th Anniversary Dinner, 6pm, October 23 at Teatro Vivaldi, ANU Arts Centre. Tickets $60 for members, $70 for non-members. Bookings to Sally.Brockwell@anu.edu.au

 

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