University of Otago campus works and the Dunedin Heritage Festival

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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 following the discovery of gold in Otago in 1861 (see the difference in the two photos of North Dunedin below!). These deposits included traces of old building foundations, a cobbled stable floor and footpaths, rubbish pits, timber-lined drains, and a large sample of artefactual material.


View of North Dunedin ca. 1861 (Hocken Snapshop, Item 0518_01_003A).


View of North Dunedin ca. 1869 (Te Papa Collections Online, Item C.012048). 


The recently held Dunedin Heritage Festival included a public display of some of the artefacts recovered during the School of Dentistry excavations. Myself and SPAR colleagues had some great chats with members of the public about the excavations, the process of post-excavation analysis, and more generally what archaeology adds to our understanding of life in early Dunedin. I've talked a little bit more about this last point in a previous post to this blog.

It was also great to see this example of local archaeology get picked up and featured by local media.


Thanks for reading,

 Nick.

Comments

  1. Robin SuttonJanuary 18, 2020 at 4:34 PM

    Nice work Nick.... I appreciated the photos to put the work into context. That's extraordinary growth over 8 years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NickApril 3, 2020 at 8:50 PM

      Thanks for your comment ... just saw it now! There may be a margin of error of a year or two with these types of photos - hence the ca.'s in the captions - but yes, considerable development over the course of about a decade!

      Delete

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