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Significant features of the bottle assemblage are:
• the prominence of applied lip and applied ring neck treatments, and the
presence of sand pontil marks which mayor may not be associated
with the application of the neck and lip parts.
• the frequency with which paste turn-mould, post-bottom and cupbottom
moulds occur in the assemblage of bottle bases.
• the relative infrequency of bare-iron pontils, semi-automatic and
automatic bottle machines.
The most frequently occurring features could be expected to be found on
bottles manufactured between 1820 and 1920. Very few of the bottles
appear to have been manufactured much later than the end of the First
World War, while analysis of bottle lips suggests this date might be further
refined to 1913. Paste moulded bottles and the various post-moulds with
embossed lettering point to dates of manufacture subsequent to 1850.
The analysis of bottle parts thus confirms most were made either prior to or
around the time that the sites were occupied by the Chinese gardeners.
The absence of more recent bottles at Chinaman's Garden Well, and, with
some explainable exceptions, at Chinaman's Well tends to confirm that
artefact assemblages from the sites do not include material from
disassociated periods.
But having established with reasonable certainty the date of the bottles
included in the assemblage, it is necessary to consider another factor
before continuing with the assertion that the bottle glass was deposited at
the sites during the Chinese occupation. This is the observation that a
proportion of the glass has been flaked, suggesting that it was reused by
Australian Aborigines. That the number of neck and base pieces is
disproportionate to the volume of glass from the walls of bottles may be a
product of visibility, but may also be a product of the importation of bottle
bases and lips for rework. If so some of the glass may have come from
station refuse dumps. That at Mount Poole, for example would perhaps
date from the early 1860s. Countering this is the close association
between the bottle fragments and other surface artefacts such as opium
tins and Chinese ceramics. Persons more qualified than I may be willing to
suggest there was a close association between the Chinese at Milparinka
and at least some Australian Aborigines, which would explain quite
satisfactorily the proximity of the finds.
On a more general note, the analysis of bottles from Milparinka may
demonstrate that obsolescence of a manufacturing technique in Europe or
America does not necessarily mean it was totally abandoned in Australia,
or that bottle importers and manufacturers in Australia tended to hold large
stocks of bottles and to have a much longer phasing-out period. The
smaller overall market size, its sparse distribution, and distance from major
competitors, may all have impacted upon the bottle stocks held and the
adoption of replacement techniques by Australian bottle manufacturers.