Solitary Cell Unearthed at Tasmania Convict Station

KEMPTON, TASMANIA—Mirage News reports that a team of archaeologists and students from the University of Tasmania unearthed a solitary cell at Picton Road Station, where 150 convicts lived while building a 125-mile-long road connecting the towns of Hobart and Launceston between 1839 and 1847. “We have excavated part of an original solitary cell,” said lead archaeologist Eleanor Casella. “These cells are small and expose the harsh conditions in which convicts lived.” Convict road gangs worked six days per week from sunrise to sunset, she explained, and many of them spent the day crushing large stone with small tools. The researchers also uncovered a small room that had not been previously mapped at the site, and pieces of Chinese porcelain. Casella said the porcelain offers insight into trade between Canton, now known as Guangzhou, and colonial Tasmania. To read about the lives of prisoners at Ireland's most notorious nineteenth-century prison, go to "Letter from Ireland: The Sorrows of Spike Island."