Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, Last week (November 21-24) the New Zealand Archaeological Association 's 2022 Conference was hosted  by the University of Otago and Tūhura Otago Museum in Ōtepoti Dunedin. The theme of this year's conference was "Archaeology and the Climate Crisis", and the conference programme included a themed session of papers focused on the impact of climate change on archaeology and potential responses from the archaeological community, as well as an evening public panel discussion on this topic that included archaeological, climate science and indigenous (Māori) perspectives.  In an attempt to try something new on this blog, this post includes the story of the conference as told through social media (well, ok - mainly through my Twitter account). The full conference programme, including paper abstracts, is still available to download from  the conference webpage  for anyone that is interested. Day 1 (November 21) : Day 1 of #NZAA2022 : @Thepastfromabo1 ki...

Kia ora, Earlier this year, ahead of the start of  construction of a new six-storey building on the University of Otago's Christchurch campus , a team from our archaeological research and consultancy unit at the University, Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (SPAR) , undertook an  archaeological salvage excavation on the site. The excavation was one of the conditions of an archaeological authority for the construction works that had been granted to the University by  Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga .   In New Zealand, these authorities are a legal requirement where there is reasonable cause to expect that earthworks will affect archaeological evidence associated with pre-1900 AD human activity. In the present instance, the site is located on Oxford Terrace in Christchurch along the Avon River, right in the heart of the earliest occupied part of the  Canterbury Association's  Church of England settlement (which was founded in 1850 AD). Archaeologi...

Kia ora, New Zealand Archaeology Week 2022 is underway! New Zealand Archaeology Week, now into its sixth year, is an annual week of nation-wide public talks, exhibits, and other events aimed at increasing public awareness and appreciation of archaeology and of New Zealand's own archaeological record. Events are run by a range of amazing individuals and organizations and coordinated by the New Zealand Archaeological Association (NZAA). Over the last couple of years New Zealand Archaeology Week has been forced to adapt to the present pandemic world. In 2020 it was forced entirely online as New Zealand experienced its highest level of COVID-19 related restrictions. Thanks to the success of those earlier restrictions, New Zealand was enjoying a pre-Delta variant respite this time last year and New Zealand Archaeology Week 2021 saw the return of several in-person events alongside original online content from the NZAA and various content partners. With the Omicron variant now widesprea...

Kia ora, For this post I've decided to focus on our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals , who have been mentioned a few times in recent posts. Please note: this post contains a picture of a modern human skull. This has been included to visually illustrate the morphological differences from Neanderthals.   The first hominin fossils recognised as something distinct from  Homo sapiens (the scientific classification of all extant humans) were recovered in 1856 during quarrying of Feldhofer Cave in what was at the time the Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany). The location of the cave - the Neander 'thal' (valley) - would lend its name to a new scientific species classification, Homo neanderthalensis - referred to colloquially as Neanderthals or, alternatively, Neandertals . Why are there the two different spellings? In the early twentieth century German spelling was regularised to be more consistent with pronunciation and 'thal' became 'tal' (in German the wor...

Kia ora, In my last post to this blog I wrote a bit about the Harbin skull, a remarkable fossil find made more than 80 years ago in the city of Harbin in China's Heilongjiang province and that was first announced to the scientific community last year in three papers  published in the same issue of the scientific journal 'The Innovation' ( Qiang Ji et al. 2021 ;  Qingfeng Shao et al. 2021 ;  Xijun Ni et al. 2021 ) . The cranium is almost complete, but with only one tooth - a huge second molar - and is massive in size, with an endocranial volume of about 1420 ml (larger than the average for modern Homo sapiens - our own species !). Other morphological traits include a prominent  supraorbital torus (brow ridge), a very  broad (wide) yet orthognathic (flat) face  with large, almost  square  eye sockets, a large nasal opening and delicate zygomatic (cheek) bones, and a  cranial vault that   is low and elongated  when viewed side on...