The 6,000-Year-Old Eel Traps of Budj Bim

The Gunditjmara people of southwestern Victoria, Australia, have been living in a region of roughly 7,000 square kilometers west of Hopkins River for thousands of years. Their long occupation is evident from the extent to which they created, manipulated and modified the landscape around them. The most culturally significant among them are the water channels, dams, weirs and traps these people built using volcanic rocks to trap, store and harvest eels—one of their major source of sustenance. This sophisticated system of trapping fish and eels is the world’s oldest aquaculture system in the world. Archeologists have dated the site to be about 6,600 years old, which makes them older than the pyramids of Egypt.

Budj Bim