Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, During a trip to the Republic of Korea (aka South Korea) in 2017 I came across a piece of the Berlin Wall standing in a small square in Seoul.  The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier that once physically and ideologically divided the city of Berlin in Germany. It came to symbolize the wider division of Western and Eastern Europe during the post-World War II conflict  between "western Capitalism" (the USA and allies) and "eastern Communism" (the Soviet Union and allies) known as   the Cold War .  The piece of this monument in Seoul had been gifted by the Berlin State Senate in 2005 to stand as a memorial and as a sign of hope for the future reunification of the divided Korean peninsula. November 9 2019 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (or more precisely, the lifting of restrictions on movement between the east and west). This anniversary had me thinking a bit about a developing interest of mine - the archaeology of the...

Kia ora, The University of Otago in New Zealand is presently engaged in a number of capital development works across its Dunedin campus and part of my present employment at Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (SPAR), a research and consultancy unit in the University's archaeology programme, has been to monitor many of these works and record any archaeological evidence that is uncovered. Yours truly investigating a cobbled surface uncovered during the archaeological monitoring of capital development works on the University of Otago campus (Photo: Karen Greig). These capital development works have included the construction of a new facility for the University's School of Dentistry, which was preceded by a large open-area archaeological excavation undertaken by SPAR in early 2016. This excavation uncovered extensive archaeological deposits dating back to the 1860s, a period during which the young settlement of Dunedin was developing and expanding rapidly followin...

Kia ora, In December 2017 I wrote a post looking back at some of the highlights of that year in New Zealand archaeology. In that earlier post I noted that the archaeological record in New Zealand was something that often people in New Zealand were either not aware of, or tended to dismiss the importance of (despite it presenting unique opportunities on a global scale). "Real" archaeology is often perceived as something done overseas and not here in our little country in the corner of the South Pacific. A little later than last time, but with 2019 still in its infancy, here is a look back at some of the very "real" highlights of 2018 in New Zealand archaeology (in no particular order):   Significant piece of early European history unearthed in Wellington   Back in January 2018, OneNews reported on the discovery of significant infrastructure from the early European colonial period during the Lombard Laneway upgrade in Central Wellington, including the remai...