People in the landscape: A Biography of two villages

Interpreting the Australian rural landscape is presently an uncommon skill. While developing an archaeological test for historical and geographical locational models, the author, a consultant archaeologist based in Canberra, discovered a string of deserted villages in the eastern Riverina. This paper summarises the historical material about two of the villages to indicate the scope of data that may be overlooked by other disciplines but rediscovered by archaeologically guided research. The villages were a forgotten element of settlement that reflected both the regional struggle for land ownership and the lines of power crucial to the outcome of that struggle. Archaeology can substantively affect colonial settlement studies.