The Second Mayor of Akaroa and his Wife

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 →

Seize the means of production! The archaeology of tools and labour.

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

For a lot of us, Labour Day is celebrated in the same way as a lot of public holidays: not thinking about work, catching up the gardening and odd jobs around the house, going away for a long weekend, having … Continue reading →

The Dirtiest Word in Archaeology: Fossicking

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Disclaimer: This blog post will mainly focus on fossicking on historic sites, as that’s what we have the greatest experience with in Christchurch. We wouldn’t be able to do justice to discussing fossicking on Māori sites, but it has occurred … Continue reading →

The Shape of Things

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

On Wednesday I celebrated my six year anniversary working at Underground Overground Archaeology. I did plan on marking this milestone by staying up all Tuesday night to bake a special six-tiered chocolate cake to bring in to work and share … Continue reading →

Life Before Plastic: Final Thoughts

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

All good things must come to an end, and so this post marks the final blog in our Life Before Plastic series (here’s part one, two and three if you’ve missed any). Speaking of endings, today we’re going to be … Continue reading →

Life Before Plastic: Kmart Culture

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Last time on the blog we talked about packaging and how our Victorian ancestors made do without plastic trays to wrap their cans of coke in (and all the rest of it). This week we’re going to take a closer … Continue reading →

Life Before Plastic: Packaging

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 →

Life Before Plastic: An Introduction

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 →

The Ng King Brothers Chinese Market Garden Settlement

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Today on the blog we’re talking about an exciting project that we’ve been involved with over the past few months. In 2013 the Ashburton District Council took over stewardship of the Ng King Brothers Chinese Market Garden Settlement on Allens … Continue reading →

Conference uncovered

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

For a change of pace, a group from Underground Overground Archaeology spent last week out of the office, and out of Christchurch at the New Zealand Archaeological Association Conference on Stewart Island. The New Zealand Archaeological Association (known affectionately as … Continue reading →

A Brief Foray into Romano-British Archaeology

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Archaeologists are often faced with the question of what happens to artefacts after an excavation is complete? As is the case for a lot of excavations, artefacts can find themselves housed in museums. This centuries old institution found its beginning … Continue reading →

Lismore Lodge, Over the Barrel: how the other half lived.

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

Most of the work I do as a buildings archaeologist focuses on the humble 19th century cottage. These types of buildings, their construction methods and materials have become well trod territory in post-earthquake Christchurch, meaning we now have a fair … Continue reading →

2019: The Best of The Best

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

The temperatures are heating up, there’s Christmas decorations in shops around the city and we’re on the countdown to summer holidays. In our penultimate blog post for the year we’re going to look back on some of our best artefacts … Continue reading →

Follow the Red Brick Path

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 →

Feminine, masculine, grounds for divorce: the social effects of wearing pe…

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

When it comes to personal fragrance (continuing on from our post a couple of weeks ago), exactly which perfumes and deodorants we choose to wear can reveal a lot about us, as individuals and as a society. How we define … Continue reading →

An architectural interlude

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

We’re taking a short break between perfume posts this week and veering off in another direction entirely to present you with a photographic essay on one of the historic buildings we’ve recorded recently (but never fear, we’ll be back on … Continue reading →

Hats Off to the Past. Coats off to the Future. 2019: A Year in Review

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

And just like that, another year is over. This year’s been a big one for us. We’ve excavated some large sites, found some cool artefacts, and on top of all that we moved offices. This fortnight on the blog we’re … Continue reading →

The Risky Business of Exporting Beer in the 19th century.

Articles, Christchurch uncovered

During excavations under the floor of a house in Akaroa, we found a large assemblage of labelled bottles. Labelled bottles are always an exciting find, firstly because they tell us what the bottle held at the time of its disposal, … Continue reading →

Southern Response Earthquake Services Ltd.

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Site of government-owned company responsible for settling AMI policy-holders' claims for Canterbury earthquake damage.

Christchurch earthquake

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Blog by Debbie Roome

Rekindle

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Christchurch-based social enterprise transforms wood waste from residential demolition in Christchurch into useful objects.

Waimakariri District Council

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Information about the Waimakariri District Council and its services. Earthquake information captured in the 2015 harvest

Stronger Canterbury : earthquake recovery.

Other, National Library of New Zealand

New Zealand government website which acts as a gateway to central and local government resources, news and services pertinent to the Canterbury Earthquake.

Episodic table : the stuff of life, mostly Christchurch

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Images of Christchurch following the earthquake, showing the demolition of buildings, street art, art, community and cultural life.

Temple for Christchurch

Other, National Library of New Zealand

A large scale interactive art installation that seeks to provide a mechanism for emotional healing alongside the physical rebuilding of the city.

Pallet Pavilion

Other, National Library of New Zealand

Includes information about events held at the Pallet Pavilion.

Lost Christchurch

Other, National Library of New Zealand

After the shock and dust settled from the earthquakes, two friends, Helen Solomons and Wendy Riley, felt so strongly over the loss of the city's historic heart, they decided to put their skills to use and create this living tribute to it on the web.

Life in vacant spaces

Other, National Library of New Zealand

LVS acts as site brokers for a creative Christchurch, finding short and medium-term uses for the many vacant sites and buildings of Christchurch.

Canterbury Rebuild Safety Charter

Other, National Library of New Zealand

The Charter is an agreement on health and safety between the leaders of a number of government organisations and companies leading the rebuild.

In the know

Other, National Library of New Zealand

In the Know aims to make it faster and easier for Canterbury residents to get information about the residential rebuild and repair process.