Tailing mounds, Ah Hack's claim

Tailing mounds, Ah Hack's claim, Bobs Creek, Mongarlowe.

This is an example of a characteristically Chinese type of tailings mound.

"Vertically stacked tailing mounds, in particular, are very strong evidence of Chinese mining activities."

"... the main ethnically based distinction of any clarity concerned the elongated mounds of water worn stone piled up after working the face and floor of the diggings, referred to as tailing mounds, and classified as Type D. These mounds were not simply piles of stone, but a part of the technology used on the field itself. They were often arranged as tail races which would in turn hold rock sluices or sluice boxes, as dams and as barrow ways. At the time I distinguished two principal types of tailing mounds, unstructured mounds referred to as Type Dl, and neatly packed vertical mounds (Type D2). I suggested that the latter were generally characteristic of Chinese mining sites (McGowan 1996:34-35). The existence of this ethnically determined characteristic has been confirmed time and time again by fieldwork ...."

Barry McGowan, The archaeology of Chinese alluvial mining in Australia, Australasian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 21, 2003, pp. 11-17.