Between 1990 and 1992, a group of archaeologists mapped the remains of the settlement on the Moorabool and excavated four houses there. Like the miners, they were drawn to the site by the desire to dig for treasure. In Dolly's Creek, Susan Lawrence tells the story both of their archaeological research and of the community they uncovered.
Dolly's Creek uses landscape, material objects and documents to gain an understanding of the nature of the diggings community and of the ways in which it changed as the gold rush passed. Susan Lawrence's imaginative, exploratory approach invites us to engage in the clue-finding, jigsaw-like quality of the archaeological hunt.
This is a beautifully written book—historical ethnography at its best.