Extract from ABC News
Maritime archaeologists are working to restore the oldest colonial-era boat ever found in Australia.
It was discovered during construction of the Barangaroo metro station on the edge of Sydney's CBD in 2018 and is expected to be on display at the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) by the middle of 2027.
"We knew we'd find a few archaeological pieces, but we never thought we'd find something this incredible right in the middle of the Barangaroo station site," Sydney Metro head of operations Hugh Lawson said.
The remnants of a colonial-era boat were discovered during construction of the Barangaroo metro station in Sydney. (Supplied: NSW government)
The boat is estimated to have been used by British settlers between 1790 and 1830 for trade across Sydney Harbour.
Archaeologists also believe it travelled south to the Shoalhaven and north to Newcastle, with its timber traced back to eucalypt species found along the Hawkesbury River.
Maritime archaeologists are working on the restoration of the vessel. (Supplied: NSW government)
"It's our earliest example of taking those traditional boat building techniques from the UK and using them in Australia with Australian timber," maritime archaeologist Benjamin Wharton said.
"It's all Australian hardwoods coated in pitch, so once that was all in the ground as well, it really created a good environment for it to be stable."
The boat is estimated to have been used by British settlers between 1790 and 1830 for trade across Sydney Harbour. (Supplied: City of Sydney Archives)
Archaeologists took two months to painstakingly excavate the boat piece by piece, all of which had to be kept moist for over a year while a facility was built to preserve the overall vessel.
"This is an incredible story of one of our newest forms of transport uncovering one of the oldest forms of transport in the colony, the early days of ship building and the use of ships in Sydney," NSW Transport Minister John Graham said.
Reconstructing a 200-year-old boat
Archaeologists traced the boat's timber back to eucalypt species found along the Hawkesbury River. (Supplied: City of Sydney Archives)
The ANMM team used newspaper reports, diary entries and government records from the time to try to understand the type of trade that was happening and how the boat would have been used.
Mr Wharton is now investigating how to reconstruct the boat, like a huge, delicate jigsaw puzzle.
"We're coming up with different ways for cradle structure, how to join two bits of wood together using custom-made fasteners, also looking at the timbers to research methods of construction," he said.
Benjamin Wharton says reconstructing the boat's remnants is like a puzzle. (Supplied: Australian National Maritime Museum/Juri Puisens)
Hundreds of items which give a snapshot of everyday life in the new British colony were also well-preserved alongside the boat's remains, in layers of silt.
"There's glass bottle fragments, lots of decorated ceramics, leather shoes, smoking pipes, toothbrushes, even bones of remnants of things that people ate," maritime archaeologist James Hunter said.
"You can see the bite marks of humans on cow, sheep and pig bones, and then you can see where rats have gnawed into the bones after humans have thrown those bones away."
Hundreds of items were also well-preserved alongside the boat's remains, in layers of silt. (Supplied: Australian National Maritime Museum/Juri Puisens)
Dr Hunter said all the items dated to the mid to late 1830s, which indicated that was when the boat was abandoned.
"At that stage, convicts were still coming here, but we also had free settlers coming in but it was still a colonial outpost on the far side of the world," he said.
He said the artefacts showed settlers were trying to replicate their lives in Europe and boats were instrumental to life in the new colony, whether that was for moving goods, people or information.
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