The jam post and plain wire fence: An insight into York’s agricultural, ecological and economic history
Roger Underwood. 2005. The jam post and plain wire fence: An insight into York’s agricultural, ecological and economic history. Barladong (5) 2005: 16-27 (Barladong is the journal of the York Historical Society in Western Australia).
A jam post and plain wire fence (with one run of barb) in the Avon Valley – probably built in the 1920s, photographed in 2004
Full text:
ONE OF THE MOST ubiquitous features of our agricultural districts until a few years ago was the jam post and plain wire fence. Until replaced by modern fences made with manufactured link mesh wire and steel pickets or treated pine posts, jam post and plain wire fences extended over thousands of kilometers throughout the Avon Valley and beyond. They demarcated paddocks and property boundaries and river, road and railway reserves. Many of the jam post and plain wire fences constructed during the early 20th century still stand and perform a useful function today (although usually with a run of ringlock added, and a few steel pickets as supports). Others were over 100 years old at the time they were replaced. These old fences are not only a testimony to the durability and simplicity of the structure, but to the skill and hard work of the people who built them. They also provide insights into the regional economy and ecology and its social history.
One of the finest remnants of early fencing is still to be seen along sections of the York-Greenhills railway reserve, where the original jam posts, heavy gauge wire and cast iron windlass strainers can still be observed. This fence would have been constructed in 1898 when the railway was built (Tilley, 1998).
I am interested in the use of natural resources, especially timber, and I have always been fascinated by the jam wattle (Acacia acuminata) tree and its (mostly unsung) contribution to the development of the farming industry in the Avon districts and beyond. To get a sample of the extent of this contribution, I recently estimated the distance of boundary fencing which followed the subdivision of the Gwambygine Estate. This estate had resulted from the 1890s breakup into farms and homestead blocks of one of the original pastoral leases on the Avon River, south of York. I measured boundary fencing alone and the distance amounted to over 550 kilometers for this single subdivision.
When this figure is extrapolated to subsequent farm development in the York area and along the Avon Valley, together with the knowledge that one kilometer of fencing required 300 posts, 5 (and often 6) kilometers of wire, and strainer posts at every corner and every few hundred metres along the fence, it gives some idea of the extent of the task involved in fence construction, and of the vast resources of timber which were used.
Fences are so much a part of the rural landscape, that they largely go un-noticed. Nor is their history appreciated, or the way in which the development of fencing and the use of timber posts is interconnected with social, ecological and economic history. In reflecting on these issues, it is necessary to go back to the earliest days of settlement.
Impacts Of Earthquake Tsunamis On Oregon Coastal Populations
Leland Gilsen. 2002. Impacts Of Earthquake Tsunamis On Oregon Coastal Populations. Association of Oregon Archaeologists Occasional Papers No. 7, 2002.
Leland Glisen was the State Archaeologist for Oregon from 1978 to 2002 within the State Historic Preservation Office of Oregon State Parks. He has a Ph.D. in Anthropology with a specialization in Archaeology from the University of Arizona. This paper was downloaded and reposted with permission from Dr. Glisen’s excellent website, Oregon-Archaeology [here].
Full text [here]
Selected excerpts:
Introduction
What were the impacts to human populations from great subduction earthquakes and resulting tsunamis? This key question has not been addressed by archaeologists. What happens to population growth curves along the northern California, Oregon, and southern Washington coasts when, on an average of every 572 years, a great-subduction earthquake (between 8 and 9+ on the Richter scale with up to 10 hours of tsunami waves) hits prehistoric settlements?
First, there must have been significant loss of life among the prehistoric populations. Second plant and animal resources would have been disturbed or destroyed to some degree. Third, communication and travel would have been disrupted. Fourth, water transport (canoes) on estuaries and along the coast would have been lost or destroyed. Fifth, shelters (housing) would have been lost or damaged.
If in mid-winter and at night, like the quake of 1700, people would have been in coastal winter villages. They must have faced massive damage when weather conditions were poor. Stored foods may have been lost or damaged. Sites on cliff edges (including winter houses) may have crashed into the sea.
Physical Evidence
Adams (1992) summarized research into quakes in the Seattle area and found local tsunamis in the narrow channels, rock avalanches in the Olympic Mountains that dammed streams to produce lakes, and block landslides in Lake Washington. Atwater and Moore (1992) verified the local Puget Sound tsunamis north of Seattle. Karlin and Abella (1992) found steep basin landslides in Lake Washington in at least three locations that included large block slides that submerged forest habitats. Schuster et al. (1992) suggested that eleven rock avalanches in the southeastern Olympics were the result of quakes. “The rock avalanches that formed Jefferson, Lower Dry Bed, and Spider Lakes, and perhaps Lena Lake, provide evidence that strong shaking accompanied abrupt tectonic displacement in western Washington” (Schuster et al. 1992:1621). Logan and Walsh (1995) documented two drowned forests in lake Sammamish as evidence for one or two large block landslides into the lake as the result of a major earthquake.
So the physical damage from such events must have been massive. But the cultural and social damage must have been just as great. The loss of life in a small scale society would have a disproportionate effect on population growth curves, flattening them out, and modifying the region’s demography. This in turn, would have long term effects on human ecology or population adaptation. With the overall population being hit by periodic episodes of catastrophic death and destruction, there simply was a slower change in carrying capacity and a reduced need for changes in any of the key economic technological systems (production, distribution, consumption, or storage) or political systems (access to, and control over, important resources in the physical, biotic of cultural environmental context). …
