ABSTRACT
Mining has played a prominent role in Australian culture and history, and in the modern heritage industry. Of the various kinds of mining in Australia, the gold industry had a widespread impact on the country as a whole because of its geographic, economic and demographic extent. Large quantities of gold were discovered in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851, setting off a series of rushes that by the end of the century had reached every colony and region. The gold rush has received considerable attention from Australian historians (Bate 1978, 1988; Blainey 1963; Goodman 1994; Serle 1963, 1971) and there is general agreement that the 1850s-the main decade of the gold rush-was a watershed in the country’s development. Mining has been no less important to archaeologists and heritage managers because of the scale of its impact on the environment and the quantity of physical fabric remaining.
