Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, For the last month New Zealand has been in lockdown to try and eliminate the Covid-19 virus. This has temporarily placed considerable restrictions on our normal freedom of movement. For most New Zealanders, this has meant travel outside of one's immediate neighbourhood has been limited to the access of essential services, such as grocery stores and medical care. In response I thought I would write a short blog post about a couple of sites of historic interest I've come across during recent walks in my local area - the North East Valley in Dunedin.   I thought it was particularly appropriate to write a New Zealand focused blog post this week, seeing as it is New Zealand Archaeology Week . This is an annual nation-wide event coordinated by the New Zealand Archaeological Association that is now into its fourth year. In previous years events such as public exhibits, talks and guided tours of archaeological sites and landscapes have been held across th...

Kia ora,  What a surreal last few weeks this has been! I hope everyone reading this is safe and well.  Here in New Zealand we are in the second week of a national lockdown  to try and eliminate the Covid-19 virus. I thought I'd use some of the extra time I now have up my sleeve to start writing for this blog again!  This past week has presented a great opportunity to reflect on and write about a real interest subject of mine - human origins - with the publication of a number of relevant scientific papers reporting the discoveries of important new fossils and the application of new (and refined) analytical approaches to glean new information from older fossils.  Quick side note  here: I'm not a trained palaeoanthropologist and I welcome feedback from those that know the field better if factual errors are spotted, as I would like this blog to be regarded as an accurate source of information. Hopefully I somehow manage to do justice to such a complex and fl...

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...

Kia ora, A couple of posts back I talked about what pseudoarchaeology was. As the combining form 'pseudo-' implies, it is essentially 'false archaeology'.  Pseudoarchaeological interpretations of the past are based on data that has been 'cherry-picked' (i.e. selectively sampled) to support a particular pre-determined conclusion. What's the harm in a bit of pseudoarchaeology?  The fact that pseudoarchaeology is intellectually dishonest, and widely perpetuates inaccurate information about the past is in itself a reason to challenge it.  The Ancient Astronaut 'theory', discussed in my earlier post , is one prominent example of pseudoarchaeology. It has gained a strong foothold in popular culture thanks to the hugely successful TV show Ancient Aliens, which in turn was inspired by an earlier outlet for the idea - Erich von Däniken's bestselling book, Chariots of the Gods? While these may just be a bit of a ( meme-worthy ) laugh to some, t...

Kia ora, In my last post to this blog , I noted that one of the key differences between archaeological and pseudoarchaeological interpretations of the past is that established archaeological interpretations are the result of inductive reasoning  (i.e. conclusions are built from the 'bottom-up', based on (all) the available data), while pseudoarchaeological interpretations rely on data that has been selectively sampled to support the claims that are being made.  That's not to claim that archaeological interpretations are never wrong! But there is an important distinction that needs to be made between blatantly biased data selection and/or manipulation leading to incorrect interpretations (that is, pseudoarchaeology) and an interpretation that proves to be incorrect as a result of additional research and new data. Many areas of Oceania, for instance, are largely archaeological ' terra incognita ' (unknown land) and it is expected that as these areas are explored...