Rat infestations may have been a nightmare for convicts at the Hyde Park Barracks, but today historians are grateful for their activity.
Rat infestations may have been a nightmare for convicts at Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks in the 1800s, but today historians are grateful for the rodents.Researchers joke that these rats inadvertently became the barracks' first curators.
The material looked like big piles of dusty, dirty rubbish when it was discovered in 1979, but archaeologists were thrilled upon closer inspection. "It turns out the accumulated rat nests contained more than 80,000 archaeological artefacts that had been trapped under the floorboards and undisturbed for up to 160 years," said Beth Hise from Sydney Living Museums.
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