Carceral Time at Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula: An Archaeological View of the Mechanisms of Convict Time Management in a Nineteenth Century Penal Landscape

Abstract

Between 1833 and 1877 the Tasman Peninsula (Van Diemens Land/Tasmania) operated as a restricted penal zone for British convicts transported to Australia. The main penal settlement was situated at Port Arthur, with a series of substations spread across an area of 660 km² (250 mi²). At its mid-1840s peak over 3,000 male convicts, military, and free resided on the peninsula. The vast majority of the men were engaged in diverse industrial activities, ranging from manufacturing to resource extraction, as well as the associated tasks of transport and communications. Archaeological and historical evidence demonstrates that this multiscalar penological industrial landscape was coordinated by an interlinked system of audio and visual signaling. Activity within settlements and the immediate economic hinterland was synchronized by bells, while more distant or topographically difficult sites incorporated visual signaling with time balls and semaphores. A GIS analysis of soundscapes and viewsheds shows that the latter afforded coordination of labor across the hinterland, as well as rapid complex messaging between different stations and beyond, while also spreading a net of time compliance and surveillance across the penal peninsula.