Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Assessment Mamre South Precinct

Client: Altis Property Partners and Frasers Property Australia
Location: Mamre Road, Kemps Creek
Date: 2018 – current

Services provided

• Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Assessment
• Aboriginal community consultation
• Archaeological survey
• Archaeological test excavations
• Archaeological community collection and salvage excavations (manual and mechanical)
• Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management Plan
• Aboriginal heritage monitoring

Background

Biosis was commissioned to prepare an Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Assessment for a State Significant Development Application for an industrial precinct. The project included the management of stakeholder consultation, formulation of a detailed predictive model, survey, large scale test excavation and post-approval salvage excavations. The project required staff to work in extreme weather conditions to tight timeframes, which required a well-planned mobilisation of resources, a system to deploy them effectively and agile team members.

Outcome

Salvage excavations were completed in 2021 and the Aboriginal community identified a preliminary count of more that 35,000 potential artefacts that are currently being analysed. This is a significant finding for the Kemps Creek area. Common lithic materials found include silcrete, chert, quartzite and indurated mudstone/tuff (IMT). Due to the large artefact assemblage, consultation was undertaken with Heritage NSW and the Aboriginal community to ensure that adequate analysis of the artefacts could be undertaken, this has ensured the project has maintained positive relationships and outcomes.