Aboriginal ponds – an archaeological feature on the Murray River, with implications for wetland stewardship

We report on a new archaeological feature – Aboriginal ponds – associated with earth mounds in Aboriginal Barapa traditional country settlements on the Murray River floodplain. These features are large depressions situated on flood runners that produce slight alterations to local hydrology. They hold one to five Olympic swimming pools of water (2.5–12.5 ML). We describe the structure and location of ponds at two Barapa villages. “Traditional Flows” were delivered, filling several ponds. Monitoring of small-bodied fish in the parent wetlands and adjacent ponds allowed for a preliminary assessment of the value of these features across the mid-Murray River floodplain. We demonstrate how minor modifications through traditional weirs affected local hydrology, with resulting water storage implications as well as the abundance and distribution of plant and animal resources. This improves our understanding of late Holocene Barapa settlement patterns and of how people modified the local landscape and, therefore, its ecology with consequences for food and fibre distribution as ponds developed over the last 3500 years. More importantly, there are implications for aquatic flora and fauna conservation as well as land and water management, all guided by Barapa intellectual property as set out in their local traditional knowledge distilled into their archaeological record.