Biosis has marked its 100th approval of a Cultural Heritage Management Plan (CHMP) by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria (AAV) with the completion of its detailed excavations at Thompsons Road in Cranbourne North. The excavations, described by a senior AAV archaeologist as one of the finest investigations in the Cranbourne Sands, employed a large horizontal exposure strategy to recover a sequence of stratified Aboriginal archaeological deposits from a dune/swamp margin within an early Holocene landscape.
Working in difficult logistical conditions and encountering large concentrations of cultural materials to 1.4m below the ground surface, Biosis archaeologists, in partnership with traditional owners have taken valuable steps in the chronological and behavioural reconstruction of Aboriginal occupation in the region during a time of great environmental upheaval.
Biosis will now turn its attention to further research into the significance of the findings, including radiometric dating of the archaeological deposits, followed by publication of its results. Importantly, the findings have contributed greatly to the methodological approaches of future investigations in the Cranbourne Sands, as well as our understanding of the area's archaeology.