• Archaeologist Joe Dortch and staff B’geella Romano and India Dilkes-Hall. In the bottom right corner, stuck in the dirt, is a pre-1900s jug. Photo by Emmie Dowling

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have dug up part of a Fremantle car park in the hopes of finding evidence of affluence when the WA gold rush started in 1892.

Although they found “nothing particularly amazing” late last month, archaeologist Joe Dortch and his team are hoping to go back to the car park—at the corner of Bannister and Pakenham streets—for a better look.

Found items include bottle bases, a jug and bits of crockery from an 1882 bakehouse.

“We found a mixed deposit—so a few items before the turn of the century but we haven’t yet realised, this time around, exactly where they sit on the timeline in a meaningful way,” Dr Dortch says.

“We’re hoping to learn something about how people became more affluent and evidence there were more people in the area around the gold rush. Although it was not a mining site, I understand Fremantle was a point of entry.”

He says history books don’t tell a lot about domestic settings, such as a bakery, in the 1880s.

Items of interest would help Dr Dortch’s team discern whether folk had been more liberal with money. So anything pointing to the type of food eaten or utensils used would be good, he says.

The first European owner of the land—far from prime real estate back then because it was low-lying and wet and in the rough end of the port city—was well-to-do businessman James Davey in the 1850s.

Nothing was done with the land for 30 years, until Mr Davey’s nephew, Thomas, built the bakehouse.

For unknown reasons, the bakery was sold after 25 years and in the 1960s it became the car park it is today.

Soon, developers from Yolk Property Group will turn the car park into an apartment complex.

Archaeologists worked with the property group for the initial dig.

The complex is expected to be completed by next July.

by EMMIE DOWLING