Over the last month the project team has been georeferencing numerous historic maps and plans to create a spatial representation of changes to Port Arthur’s landscape during the convict period.

The last two months have been a busy time for the Landscapes of Production and Punishment team. The Port Arthur mapping project has continued, and the LiDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) data has been received and processed. The transcription phase has commenced and the georeferencing and mapping work is completed.

In addition to digitising, coding and filling out the metadata for the historic structures, UNE Junior Research Fellow Richard Tuffin has been digitising all the historic gardens, cultivation plots and boundaries, our historical data having revealed that many of the offences committed at Port Arthur occurred in garden spaces (there was a particular penchant, it seems, for stealing of potatoes to supplement rations). By mapping the boundaries, we are also able to better delineate how convicts, guards and officers navigated the spaces of the penal station, and how important the control and surveillance of such spaces was to the successful administration of the settlement.

Meanwhile, Dr Tuffin’s processing of the high-resolution LiDAR data is allowing for us to visualise the landscape in new ways, and over a much greater area. Over the coming months we will be digitising the spatial data in the LiDAR, highlighting the features that will be targetted in the forthcoming winter archaeological survey.

The Landscapes team is also pleased to welcome back Kelsey Priestman who has rejoined us for the next four months, working with the Port Arthur Resource Centre’s Susan Hood on the transcription and digitisation of Port Arthur convict records.

Picture caption: LiDAR image of Port Arthur and its hinterland showing key areas of activity during the convict period, by Dr Richard Tuffin.

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