First we reported on the trowel play of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology's very recent archaeological dig there. Then our invoking of the evocative word "Springbank" sent lots of readers cavorting down memory lane, telling us stories of Springbank Island frolics and shenanigans of yesteryear.

Today, after a few days of landlubbery without a mention of the island we voyage back to it (in a virtual sense) to tell you of Wednesday's occasion at which the archaeologists declared what their forensic diggings (I've never seen such neat and aesthetically pleasing trenches!) had yielded.

We'll come to that in a trice but here first is yet another reader's Springbank yarn.

Bill Burke, of Yarralumla, reminisces that "There is no time like the present and the future is generally even better but in the not too far distant past (1987) Canberra was a smaller and less complicated if less sophisticated city graced by the much-loved hospital on the lake. I had the pleasure to work there and it is where where I met my beautiful wife."

"Budget scrutiny was blissfully cursory in those pre-self-government days and Royal Canberra Hospital boasted among its facilities a boat club and two rowing boats. The club's heart and soul in those years was Ken 'Hoppo' Hopkinson, and under his boundlessly enthusiastic watch we used to happily front up in the misty pre-dawn to train before work and competed against other clubs in the weekly regattas at Yarramundi Reach, hosted in turn by the various clubs.

"It came to pass that the hospital boat club was duly allocated hosting duties and much to our surprise and to their credit the ACT Rowing Association agreed not only to our decision to relocate proceedings to the stretch of water between the outlet of Sullivan's Creek and the Acton jetty beside the hospital but also to the first and probably only novelty race in ACT rowing history.

"The cox of each crew was handed a sealed envelope. Crews raced to Springbank Island where the coxes disembarked, opened their envelopes and searched for the nominated item (bed pan, urine bottle, etc) and raced back to their waiting crews and on to the finish line.

"From memory not all items were recovered so the ANU archeological dig [may have turned up] some mud-encrusted medical artefacts."

Reader John Howard chimes in with the information that Springbank was "once a seat of learning".

"Many Canberrans will know that the first school in Canberra was St John's Schoolhouse. The school operated from 1845 until 1880... but then the Master and some of the children moved to the new Public School at Springbank, Acton. In 1895, classes resumed in the schoolroom at St John's because the Schoolhouse proved to be a more central location than Springbank. So if the current dig on Springbank Island unearths a slate or dunce's cap, they will know why."

But at Wednesday's briefing at the ANU Dr Duncan Wright didn't mention any of those sorts of things. Instead he rejoiced over finding "an array of 19th century glass and porcelain" and many more indigenous artefacts (mostly flakes of stone sharpened to be used as scrapers) than he'd expected.

Just to recap - the island was invented when Lake Burley Griffin filled in 1964. The powers-that-be wanted the lake to have a few token islands and so this knoll of land was augmented with lots of imported earth. The homestead of the Springbank property, the property marked out by Deputy Surveyor-General Robert Hoddle in 1832, once stood on that knoll. And so the dig was in search of evidence of that 19th century, early 20th century pioneering presence.

Meanwhile the fact that some of the stone flake tools are made from types of stone not occurring nearby tempts one, Dr Wright mused, giving in to temptation, to think that the Springbank bailiwick may have been a meeting place for indigenous people from far around.

On Wednesday, in rooms beneath the ANU's A.D. Hope building, Dr Wright had a bevy of archaeology students slaving over a special kind of sink, busily brushing muck off the stone treasures found on the island. They were using that specialised forensic tool of archaeology, the toothbrush.

He fancies that with their trenches they only got down to layers pertaining to activities of perhaps only a very few hundred years ago. This was a mere bagatelle given a likely aboriginal presence of many thousands of years. But it couldn't be helped because on Springbank they'd dug down to water and could go no further.

Quirky findings of the dig included, at about 15cms, a time-ravaged golf ball and a bit of a golf tee. So someone, Dr Wright surmises, has used the island for golf. He has heard, too, that once upon a time marihuana was grown there, and as we have have shewn in recent columns it has been used for theatrical productions and for jazz concerts.

Today by contrast it feels eerily ignored although a feature of the ANU dig was an Open Day which 100 members of the public showed up to join in the digging. And some of them found things. One eight year old girl dug up a 19th century brick.

"She wanted to take it home," Dr Wright remembered, but course he had to be Dr Killjoy and keep it, putting it in its special packet to await the day of its forensic toothbrushing.