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Articles, Christchurch uncovered

The Beca Heritage Festival 2019 is currently on in Christchurch. There’s lots of interesting events being held, highlighting both the work being done in the heritage sector in Christchurch and providing opportunities to visit and interact with Christchurch’s heritage (see … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

As building archaeologists we record and analyse the form, structure and ornamentation of 19th century dwellings to learn about the lives led by past occupants. The Victorian era was a time of invention and achievement. Society was dominated by middle-class morality as they … Continue readi...

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Recently we’ve been working in Lyttelton at the intersection of Canterbury and Winchester Streets for the installation of a replacement stormwater. While Lyttelton isn’t exactly over the rainbow, for archaeologists it is a pretty fantastic place to discover heritage and … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Words. Words, words, words. Words[1]. We’ve been talking about words this week. Specifically, the words and phrases associated with archaeology (and heritage) in the public sphere that we – as a profession – can find problematic. Even more specifically, the … Continue reading &#...

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

This week on the blog we’re sending you over to Pieces of the Past, an online exhibition we’ve curated as part of Beca Heritage Week here in Christchurch. The exhibition features the staff of Underground Overground Archaeology and their favourite … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

As a researcher for Underground Overground Archaeology, I spend my time searching written and visual sources for historical information on the sites the archaeologists are working on. The newspapers available on Papers Past are some of the best sources for rediscovering … Continue reading &...

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Class is a complicated concept, historically and in the present day. It’s difficult to define, somewhat ephemeral, and yet so clearly there in our societies and our cultures. For better or for worse, social stratification has been part of human … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Childhood. We all had one. Whether we remember it vaguely or with clarity, we all passed through this phase of life. As infants we shook that baby rattle with all our might or nursed that pacifier until our eyes closed … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

At the turn of the 20th century, Christchurch’s rubbish disposal underwent a fiery transformation. After 50 years of settlement, Christchurch was facing a rubbish crisis that was starting to get people worried. The council’s weekly kerbside rubbish collection service, which … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

A few weeks ago, there was an interesting interview on Radio New Zealand with historian Jock Phillips, on the history of tobacco use in New Zealand. In the interview, Jock talked about the ways in which people consumed tobacco in … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

In previous blog posts we’ve touched upon the smells of 19th century Christchurch and how, in the absence of an organised sewerage and rubbish disposal system, early Christchurch was, at the best of times, a dirty old town. Inadequate drainage … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

When we are recording a standing structure we might be lucky enough to discover wallpaper hidden behind plasterboard or tucked under skirtings. In some houses we can find layers of wallpaper, each revealing a stylistic period. While many of the … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Continuing on from our last FAQ post, here are the answers to a few more of the questions we face regularly here in Christchurch. 1)      Are you doing this for a school project? Yes, seriously. This gets asked more often … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Gender matters. And it’s complicated, which is why writing this blog post has been particularly difficult. Why is it so complicated, from an archaeological standpoint? Well, let me try and explain. Historical archaeology developed as a discipline in the mid-20th … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Last time on the blog we introduced our Life Before Plastic blog series, and today we’re continuing the series by discussing packaging. A lot of what we find in the archaeological record are containers, which are a form of packaging. … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

‘Rubbish’ is the most common thing we find on our 19th century archaeological sites. I have ‘rubbish’ in quotation marks because to us what we find isn’t rubbish, it’s the material evidence of what life was like in the early … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

The challenge for this week’s blog was to consider class and buildings – more specifically: houses. When I decided to write this post, I thought it’d be relatively straightforward – I have a really interesting house to tell you about, … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Picture this. A summer’s day: clear blue skies and the heat of the afternoon sunshine, just the hint of a breeze. You might be in a garden, sheltering from the sun in the shade of the tree or under a … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Who would have thought a Bin Inn could have such a sacred past? But as is usually the case with archaeology, once the layers are peeled back, an entirely different story starts unveiling itself. In its glory days this bargain … Continue reading →

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Last week, Jessie’s post mentioned MacLaren’s Imperial Cheese, an early 20th century foodstuff we found in Christchurch. This cheese pot, which looked so insignificant and sounded so odd, represents one of the steps en route to our modern culinary world. Even … Continue reading →