http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue17-2006/research/research-eels.html

A volcanic landscape near Portland in south-western Victoria once housed a thriving community of eel farmers, Monash University researchers are discovering.

Report: Karen Stichtenoth

Australia’s gourmet food industry may have originated many thousands of years ago, if data being uncovered at the Mt Eccles lava flow site near Portland is anything to go on.

The area is a haven for shortfin eels that migrate from Vanuatu and New Caledonia, almost 3000 kilometres away, attracted by the climate and abundant moisture of the Portland region.

Evidence collected by Monash postdoctoral fellow Dr Heather Builth shows that the local Gunditjmara people modified a vast tract of swampland to trap and farm eels in what was possibly Australia’s earliest and largest aquaculture venture.

Dr Builth has studied the Budj Bim (Aboriginal for ‘top of head sticking out’) volcanic landscape and associated swamps and lakes such as Lake Condah for more than 10 years.

She is currently mapping the area and documenting its archaeology. The project is part of a long-term study to analyse and interpret the cultural and environmental landscape of the lava flow.

(more in link)

I thought this had been known for a long time.

we have to humour DV

Hi monkey.

Hobart’s usually warmer than the middle of the island, too.

oops

Bubblecar said:

I thought this had been known for a long time.

I’m certain that Buffy has raised it a few times.

sibeen said:

Bubblecar said:

I thought this had been known for a long time.

I’m certain that Buffy has raised it a few times.

Ja.

Is this the time to quote monty Python ?

Dropbear said:

Is this the time to quote monty Python ?

Problem with your hovercraft?

sibeen said:

Bubblecar said:

I thought this had been known for a long time.

I’m certain that Buffy has raised it a few times.

Especially when she speaks French.

party_pants said:

Dropbear said:

Is this the time to quote monty Python ?

Problem with your hovercraft?

Indeed :)

Dropbear said:

Is this the time to quote monty Python ?

I didn’t think you were a Python fan.

They are not pythons, they are eels.

Your hovercraft operates just fine without them.

What’s that sound?

kii said:

What’s that sound?

It is a whoosh.

Yes, it’s been known for ages. Having not yet read that link (in the best traditions of the forum), some more races were found after a bushfire at Mt Eccles quite a few years ago. I think there might still be a couple of ladies who know how to weave the baskets at Heywood.

Did you also know that there were stone huts in this district? And that many of the drystone walls around Camperdown were made from the stones that had been the huts?

Did you also know that there were stone huts in this district?
—-
Yes, yes I did.

Ah, I see the stone huts are mentioned.

The historical section of this paper indicates that the first Europeans in this area knew about it.

http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-85/t1-g-t8.html

There must have been a forgetting.

buffy said:

Yes, it’s been known for ages. Having not yet read that link (in the best traditions of the forum), some more races were found after a bushfire at Mt Eccles quite a few years ago. I think there might still be a couple of ladies who know how to weave the baskets at Heywood.

Did you also know that there were stone huts in this district? And that many of the drystone walls around Camperdown were made from the stones that had been the huts?

cheapsakates often ruin history.

buffy said:

The historical section of this paper indicates that the first Europeans in this area knew about it.

http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-85/t1-g-t8.html

There must have been a forgetting.

Theuy stole the building materials. Liars and thieves bever talk truth.

> A volcanic landscape near Portland in south-western Victoria once housed a thriving community of eel farmers, Monash University researchers are discovering.

Saw a TV documentary about this less than a month ago. A number of ponds were built using stone walls by Aboriginals for fish, largely eels, to come in on the high tide and then get caught as they tried to get back out to sea as the tide fell.

This may be the only new technology ever invented by Australian aboriginals.