Dig probes Ned Kelly drama
Illustration: Basil Pardo
Sites relating to one of Australia's best-known historical events – Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan in north-eastern Victoria – have been excavated by a team of archaeologists including forty La Trobe University students.
The widely-publicised dig, by Adam Ford of Dig International Pty Ltd and Professor Tim Murray, Head of the University's Archaeology Program, was carried out in May for the Rural City of Wangaratta.
The archaeologists excavated by hand the most significant sites from the 1880 Glenrowan Siege, including the Ann Jones Inn, where police and the Kelly gang faced off in a ten-hour shoot-out, looking for burnt or buried relics and other artefacts.
Although tourists are believed to have scavenged any likely surface artefacts, a bullet cartridge case believed to date from the time of the siege had been found previously – and remnants of bullets were dug up on the first day of the month-long excavation.
With the help of local volunteers, the team used stateof- the-art technology including 3D laser imagery, geophysics and photogrammetry to record the site and its contents. All artefacts are being catalogued and analysed in La Trobe's Archaeology laboratories on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora. After this they will be conserved and stored by Heritage Victoria.
Professor Murray says the dig is as much about re-examining the drama and historiography of Australia's Ned Kelly story as it is about the archaeology.
'What we're really pursuing is new information about the place that can be integrated with more traditional historical sources to enhance our understanding of what happened during the siege.'
Project historian, author and Kelly specialist Alex McDermott – who is writing his PhD thesis at La Trobe on Melbourne's founding myths – expects that finds from the Glenrowan dig will help give Australians a better understanding of themselves, through differentiating truth from legend in critical events of history.
Mystery and speculation
'If we find out irrevocably what happened to Steve Hart and Dan Kelly, for instance – and there's been a shroud of mystery around this ever since they died in that hotel – we can at least put to rest the enduring myth that they escaped the fire and lived out their lives as drovers in Queensland,' he says.
Mr McDermott has also studied closely Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter and published a book on the subject. He says the events at Glenrowan reveal a man 'pushed by two years of outlawry to an extreme edge, shown by the attempt to derail an entire police train, and the elaborate yet impracticable armour'.
'When the plan went wrong and the train was forewarned, Kelly refused to turn back. Confrontation ensued, and we now have the chance of taking apart – piece by piece – the moment to moment realities of that event.'
The Glenrowan dig follows efforts by Melbourne forensic scientists to identify remains recovered from a mass grave at the former Pentridge Gaol to establish the hanged bushranger's final resting place.