Previous studies of forest-based sawmilling in Victoria have focused on steam technology and timber tramlines. The material culture and social history of mill camps, however, has been largely neglected. Survey and excavation conducted by the author at Henry s No. 1 Mill in 1997 and 1998 sought to expand the scope offorest history. Henrys Mill operated between 1904 and 1928 in the WestBarwon watershed in south-west Victoria. Its isolation meant that around 100 people lived permanently on site. The mill settlement featured huts and houses for mill workers and their families, along with a school, store and post office. This paper outlines the main results of fieldwork and uses material evidence to examine aspects of domestic consumption at the site. Reuse and recycling is identified as an important part of mill life. The paper concludes with a discussion of the physical isolation of Henry s Mill and the ways this was overcome by workers and their families.

This paper presents selected, key results of a historical-archaeological investigation and conservation analysis ofa rare type ofconfinement facility in Australia: a military gaol or prison constructed in c.1848 and seemingly built on a British model used around the Empire at that time. It functioned as a gaol between 1849 and 1870. This type offacility has been previously little reported on and this relatively non-invasive fabric investigation ofa standing structure, with associated historical research, provides some preliminary exposure of this unusual confinement facility. The paper also presents a hypothesis about why the building was required and built in Hobart at that time and highlights, by limited comparative analysis, various institutional differences that were identified in this project between the treatment ofmilitary prisoners and contemporary civil prisoners.

Established in 1848for accommodation of transported female convicts, the Ross Female Factory operated until early 1855, when the cessation of British penal transportation to Van Diemen s Land caused the closure of this rural place of confinement. From 1995 to 1999, the Ross Factory Archaeology Project comparatively examined material culture from three wards of the prison site. Stratigraphic and architectural data demonstrated that a total of 32 features and deposits could be related to the female-convict period of site occupation. This paper presents results of a functional analysis conducted on artefacts recovered from these Factory-period deposits. Based on studies of nineteenth-century sites in the American West, this specific methodology was adapted to examine the nature and relative frequency of functional types particularly relevant to an archaeology of confinement.

The archaeology a/the penal settlernent a/NO/folk Is/and;s a substantially untapped source ofil?formalion aboul cOf/vict life. as revealed by the assemblage of artefacts excavated in J987 from the Civil (convict) Hospital privy (in use c./845-/855). Artefacts such as syringes, medicine cups. cupping glasses, medicine and alcohol bottles, clay IObacco pipes, buttons, toothbrushes and hair combs; and doclfmen/GlY reports of life in the flospiwl, reveal aspects of the material circumstances, daily activities and medical care of the convicts. They allude to the convict experiences qfI!fe, health, disease, pain Gnd death in the Civil Hospital. They represent aspects ofofficial control and the disciphning of the convict hfes~yle and body, the types of nulimefltGJJ! treatments to which convicts were exposed and theforms ofconvict resistance and reactions to the discipline imposed upon their lives. Such themes are presented as important jar expanding our understanding ofthe convict experience in Australia.

Established in /833, the Point Puer settlement represents a seminal experiment in ninCfecnth-ccnltl/Y penology, occupying a unique POSilioll in the transitioll from penitentiary to rejormatmy-sty/e institutional management of yOllng male offenders. Its operation spanned a period C?fsigl1ljicanf transformation in philosophies and techniques of penal discipline, coinciding with changing cultural perceptions of childhood, youth and adulthood. Unlike celebrated European ills/illllions like Meway and Parkhurst the Point PlIeI' selllcmcnl was largely unplanned. structures were erected and spaces appropriated (15; needs andfashions dictated. Evolving models ofpunishment and reform are closely mirrored in the organic spatial and archaeological characteristics ofthe site.

Although there is plethora of material about historical clothing, very little is ever said of the button's used to fasten them. While buttons as collectibles are also well represented in the literature, the emphasis is on the exotic rather than the mundane, with little connection to the garments from which these 'treasures' were derived. This paper initially looks at the main button types likely to be encountered on Australian excavations, with an emphasis on those ordinary buttons which dominate the archaeological repertoire. Further discussion about buttons in the context of an urban environment focuses on eight houses from the CSR site at Pyrmont, excavated in 1996 by Casey & Lowe Associates. To develop our understanding about the 'use' of buttons the paper ends with a discussion about buttons within the context of clothing. It is in the small things that are lost or misplaced that the details of everyday life may be found. Small artefacts from urban excavations relating to everyday and personal activities do not often form a major component of the percentage of artefacts recovered, or figure significantly in the final assessment of the results of the excavation. Buttons found on urban archaeological sites are one example of the small things that are often not considered as having high significance in the final analysis of the social context of a site. Although there is a substantial corpus of material relating to past fashions, and buttons as collectibles, there is little that relates directly to the majority of buttons found on urban archaeological sites.