Dr Caitlin D’Gluyas, Lecturer in Archaeology:

Within Van Diemen’s Land (now lutruwita/Tasmania) juvenile convicts were at times separated from the general convict labour network and sent to Point Puer, a convict site of reform and trade training that operated between 1834 and 1849. The well-preserved landscape has presented an opportunity to examine the historical archaeology of the site, culminating in a doctoral dissertation in 2022. This research argues that rather than being defined by age, early nineteenth century juvenility was based on perceived characteristics that were fundamentally drawn from their failure to be productive and that understandings of these characteristics shaped the institutions that formed.

Methodologically, this study follows the recent Landscapes of Production and Punishment project conducted to understand Australian convict landscapes as places of labour. The research brings together documentary and archaeological sources using GIS as the primary means to interrogate and analyse evidence of Point Puer. The resultant mapping has provided a detailed framework of spatial and temporal change at the site that has been used to consider administrative, labour and social themes. It has also collated statistical and administrative records of the past settlement, including identifying convict inmates and the characteristics that may have contributed to their targeted incarceration. To enable a landscape-wide research focus, the investigation involved soil coring and field survey, particularly to ground truth Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing data.

This research highlights how Point Puer was created to transform those deemed unsuitable for the colonising labour tasks of Van Diemen’s Land. Rather than forming a humanitarian agenda of caring for young transportees, the primary motive for their specialised treatment was successful colonisation. Historical archaeological investigation of the site shows that to achieve this, Point Puer embodied liminality, to select, reform and re-integrate young workers. All reform practices, whether moral, scholastic, religious or labour focused, were designed to create independent workers. For example, juvenile convicts built almost all of the structures at the site, which incorporated of a labour investment from each prisoner. The research is therefore necessarily labour focused, particularly through the examination of industries and their resources such as agriculture, stone quarrying and masonry performed by juveniles at the site.

The study also considers the social landscape of Point Puer, both the administrative agenda and the convict boys themselves. For example, to understand juvenile behaviours at the site, offending records that occurred at Point Puer have been analysed, principally through spatial and age-specific analysis. It has revealed some apparently juvenile-specific patterns in how non-compliance was enacted, particularly higher frequencies of absconding in groups, younger inmates avoiding confrontation and more direct forms of non-compliance for older prisoners. The spatial analysis of this indicates younger offenders utilised more peripheral spaces for hiding and recreation.

Caitlin D’Gluyas <cdgluyas@myune.edu.au>