New Zealand Archaeological Association Conference 2022

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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 2 (November 22): 


Day 3 (November 23):

The day of the traditional mid-NZAA conference field trip saw conference delegates visit a number of historic Otago sites. I didn't attend this (I will neither confirm or deny I was still working on the paper I presented on Day 4), but thankfully other social media accounts had this covered. (Incidentally, I've previously talked about one of the sites visited on the field trip, the Wetherstons Brewery, on this blog.)  



Day 4 (November 24):


While I didn't get any photos of that final session, others did:

A person standing at the front of a lecture theatre. Other people are sitting in the audience with the back of their heads visible. Blue and yellow powerpoint slides are being projected onto a screen behind the speaker. The text reads "Changing Cityscapes: archaeology and the emergence of the University of Otago campus. New Zealand Archaeological Association Conference, Otepoti Dunedin, November 2022. Nick Sutton, Tristan Russell and Karen Greig, Southern Pacific Archaeological Research."
A photo of me presenting a paper at the conference. Photo: Monica Tromp.

 

I've previously talked about some of the work I was presenting on this blog.


And finally, a shoutout to the award winners, announced at the conference dinner held at Dunedin's Larnach Castle:



Congratulations to the HMS Buffalo Re-examination Project and the Southern Cemeteries Archaeology Project for picking up the NZAA Public Archaeology Award and Best Overall Conference Paper Award respectively!  

There were also awards for best poster, best student paper (PhD) and best student paper (Masters):


Best poster: Anne-Claire Mauger, Brooke Tucker, Sabre Baker-Anderson & Marie Dunn

Title of poster: Linking coastal erosion to the loss of an archaeological landscape (Ōtokia/Brighton, Otago)


Best student paper (PhD): Brooke Tucker

Title of paper: Fishing for data: a deep dive into the analysis of barracouta harvest and preservation.


Best student paper (Masters): Rebecca Benham

Title of paper: Critiquing starch and raphides as evidence of cultigens from wetland archaeological Māori ditch systems.

 


Thanks for reading,

Nick

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