ABSTRACT

Ebenezer Mission was a landscape onto which an evangelical worldview was inscribed through the pattern of built structures but simultaneously a subversive landscape in which Aboriginal peoples' customary practices and identities were sustained. Ebenezer Mission, founded and operated by Moravians from 1859 until 1904, is located in south-eastern Australia and lies within the traditional Country of the Wotjobaluk group of the Wergaia language speakers. The participants in the 2006 excavation season at Ebenezer Mission comprised a mix of archaeologists, both practitioners and students, as well as local Aboriginal community members. Nancy Harrison grew up in the 1940s at Antwerp, a small settlement near Ebenezer Mission. She first visited the abandoned mission site with her uncles when she was seven or eight years old. As a community participant in the 2006 Ebenezer excavations, Nancy said she valued handling the unearthed material traces of her ancestors. The artefacts made her ponder the everyday lifestyles of former mission residents.