The surviving portion of limestone bar can be seen outside the windows of the Museum to the north, just under the pier.In these short audio segments, Nyoongar Elders and Museum archaeologists reveal the story of how the natural feature was first discovered, and the reasons behind its protection and integration as part of the Museum site today.

A remnant portion of the limestone bar is visible just outside the WA Maritime Museum.

Nyoongar reflections

It is important to note that during the development of this museum an important issue for Aboriginal people was to ensure that part of the rocky limestone bar remained for future generations.This is where our ancestors crossed the river and where they fished. This important Aboriginal site reminds us of our past, our people, our country and our spirit.Lots of things changed when the limestone bar was blown up. It changed how our old people moved around these lands. It ruined the water sources, the food resources and bitty the tracks. It changed the river, the whole ecosystem not just here, but right up the river up near Guildford.Image: Parts of the original limestone formation were protected and retained during construction of the WA Maritime Museum. Credit: Western Australian Museum, photographer Bec Weldon. &nbsp;

What is the limestone bar?

The limestone bar is made from tamala limestone, which is local to this area, and it would have been like a reef top. Some of it would have sat proud of the river, but most of it would have been submerged maybe four foot deep. It would have been bits of rocky limestone reef coming up at different heights along the entrance. Enough to preclude boats going up river, but also to stop the saltwater from going further up into the freshwater.The remnant portion of the limestone that remains today is not huge. It's usually, it's just a couple of meters and like a little bit of top of a, of a reef. And it's at the west end of Forest Landing, you can see it when you stand at the Forest Landing or looking at the window here at the Maritime Museum, and it just looks like a piece of limestone reef.It's quite unassuming, but it is a really important landing point.Image: The surviving portion of the limestone bar in 2024. Credit: Western Australian Museum, photographer Bec Weldon.

How was the limestone feature discovered?

When we inspected this site where the Maritime Museum now stands, we saw a visible portion of the original limestone headland of Arthur Head. So the line of the original headland actually continues below your feet and the floor of the Museum today. When we started to excavate for the new Museum in 2000 to 2002, we started to find evidence of the old headland and the old shoreline that dated back to pre-European settlement.The decision was made initially to remove all of the limestone that was surrounding the new Museum, and just have the Museum as a a strong feature in the landscape. However, as archeologists, we understood the importance of this limestone for Aboriginal people as a point where they would have crossed the river and crossed the bar. But also it had a colonial interest in that it was potentially the place where Captain Fremantle had planted his flag.At the time, we understood this to be the last remains of the limestone bar that would have blocked entrance to the river.Image:Close-up of the natural limestone surface as it was encountered during the early phase of Museum construction. Submarine HMAS Ovens in background. Credit: Western Australian Museum, Maritime Archaeology Department.

Why and how was the remnant bar retained / preserved?

In order to preserve the Limestone Bar we had to actually convince the government Department of Works to preserve it in the first place. What remains now is sitting just to the side of the Museum, so there were piles that hold the museum. The main piles of the Museum sit inside that bar, so some of it was removed, to pile the Museum, but everything to the river side of it, which was supposed to be removed, has been left as an example of what it may have looked like in the days gone by.In 2000, it wasn't seen as an important thing to do. Yet again, my training as an archeologist and working with the museum and understanding the significance to Noongar people at the time enabled us to prioritise that action. And that wasn't the norm here in Western Australia, particularly in relation to historic buildings and historic heritage. So I think it's important to maintain natural features as well as built heritage, because they tell us more about the history of Fremantle, particularly the pre-colonial period and allows Aboriginal people today to reconnect to their deep histories of the past.Image: WA Museum maritime archaeologist Corioli Souter was tasked with identifying, assessing and recording archaeological features during construction of the Museum in the early 2000s. Credit: Western Australian Museum, Maritime Archaeology Department.

Were there other archaeological finds recovered during the Museum's construction?

The site where the Maritime Museum stands today has had a long history of maritime infrastructure around it. Certainly in World War Two it was an American, Dutch and English submarine base, and a lot of the archeology we find we can associate with that period. It was also from, you know, 1897 through to, pre-World War One was an area where there was, again, a lot of shipwriting and industry and things associated with bringing cargo and things ashore.But generally there was a lot of World War Two industrial rubbish, things like, and also things like deck spikes from vessels and a whole heap of other fastenings, a lot of copper fastenings. I had a whole sequence of beer bottles unsurprisingly, but other things like stoneware ink containers and demijohn fragments. Perhaps most interesting objects is what appeared to be a whaling flensing or boning tool that we found in association with some industrial rubbish.Image: 19th century beer bottles like this one were among the more common artefacts recovered during archaeological excavations and groundworks at the WA Maritime Museum site. Credit: Western Australian Museum, Maritime Archaeology Department.

Limestone bar

Nyoongar reflections

What is the limestone bar?

How was the limestone feature discovered?

Why and how was the remnant bar retained / preserved?

Were there other archaeological finds recovered during the Museum's construction?