The Brewarrina fish traps on the Barwon River in northern New South Wales are a stone fish-trapping system built by the Ngemba people. Nearly half a kilometre long, they use dry-stone weirs and ponds shaped to the landscape and to seasonal river flows, with gates that catch fish migrating both upstream and downstream. The site was a gathering place for eight groups, with up to 3,000 people living in the area before colonisation. Its age is disputed: claims range from 40,000 years to about 1,000 years, and neither has been scientifically verified. Archaeologist Duncan Wright argues that even the lower estimate shows remarkable Aboriginal innovation. The traps were included on the National Heritage list in 2005.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.