SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—According to a statement released by Antiquity, women who lived in the Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Australia, in the nineteenth century consumed fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices that were not part of the institution’s official diet. Kimberley Connor of Stanford University said that the structure originally served as a convict barracks, and was then used to house unmarried women who migrated to Australia. Later, women who were unable to support themselves due to age, illness, or disability lived at the barracks. Historic sources also indicate that the women were provided an “idealized British diet of bread and meat,” Connor explained. Yet, when Connor examined desiccated plant remains recovered from under the floor of the barracks, she identified Australian plants, such as macadamia nuts and the fruit of the quandong tree, in addition to American corn cobs and Southeast Asian lychees. The plant remains were too large to have fallen through cracks between the floorboards, Connor added, which suggests that the plants had been placed there, perhaps to hide them from the institution’s authorities. “A handful of peanuts, shared covertly in the dormitories, or an orange snuck in after church enabled the women to hold onto the individual and the relational in an environment of uniformity,” Connor suggests. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about the beginning of Australia's colonial history, go to "Letter from Australia: Murder Islands."
