Budj Bim eel aquaculture
Acuicultura de anguilas de Budj Bim
- Date
- c. 4600 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, Lake Condah, Victoria, Australia
- Credited to
- Gunditjmara people
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A network of channels, weirs and traps cut into lava flows to divert, farm and catch short-finned eels. It is one of the oldest aquaculture systems in the world and sustained semi-permanent settlements with stone houses.
The Muldoons Trap channel has been dated to c. 6,600 years; other parts of the system are more recent and continued in use into the 19th century.
What it led to
- semi-permanent hunter-gatherer settlements
- smoking and trade of eels
- recognition as a World Heritage site (2019)