I thought we could do with a bit of light-hearted reflection this week, so this blog post is going to be about stepping into archaeology: expectations versus reality of working in the field of commercial archaeology.

For many of us, archaeology has been a field of fascination since we were very young. There is nothing more exciting than reading about the discovery of a lost city, nothing more mysterious than the lives of people who haven’t been around for thousands of years. What did they do? What did their homes look like? Did they also have to complete homework assignments, and did they too try to cheat off their friends’ work? These questions drove me as a child. There were endless archaeological sites across the world to occupy my mind – Petra in Jordan, Pompeii and Herculaneum, Troy, Machu Picchu, Skara Brae. These came to me as enormous storyboards with sporadic puzzle pieces that one could fit together as many times and in as many different ways as they wanted to. Any blanks in this colourful canvas were filled in by equally colourful depictions of archaeology in the media (often involving aliens, treasure hunting, and the destruction of an astonishing number of fictional archaeological sites). We’ve all seen them – Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Mummy versus Tom Cruise (actually, I haven’t seen that one). There is even a found-footage “horror-adventure” movie based around a team of archaeologists in Egypt (Cloverfield 36: this time it’s personal) which I’m sure is great. Movie night, anyone? And of course, who could forget the TV show Time Team, probably the most accurate depiction of (presumably well-funded) archaeological research digs. But it didn’t stop there, in fact it didn’t even start there. My earliest introduction to archaeology and a fascination with lost cities began with video games.

Cluefinders 3rd Grade: The Mystery of Mathra” which taught me nothing about ancient civilisations but plenty about maths and English in the setting of a lost civilisation. They must have all been math whizzes if they needed that many fractions to unlock their doors. Image: Cluefinders Fandom. 

In fact, a worldwide fascination with lost civilisations meant that there was an abundance of games set in ancient abandoned cities – and yet not one of them let me excavate or analyse any of the data. Very disappointing. More modern games about ‘archaeology’ and lost civilisations (for me, personally, Uncharted and Tomb Raider) follow the popular adventure archaeologist/treasure hunter narrative that we have seen in so many Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider movies. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped Nathan Drake and Lara Croft save the world – who knew the past could be so dangerous! Who knew there were so many dastardly organisations out there trying to destroy the world- oh, wait, never mind.

A fairly typical day for an archaeologist; Lara Croft gets ready for a long day on site – essential tools only. Image: pcgamer.com. 

Figure 3. Extreme buildings archaeology: Nathan Drake and his associates plan out the best way to properly record these suspiciously well preserved 17th century wooden buildings in the thick of the jungle on a fictional island near Madagascar. The precarious nature of these types of buildings means you have to be well prepared; a quick glance at this picture shows some serious safety breaches. Where are their hardhats and high vis?! Image: reddit. 

The next step was an obvious one, it was time to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of debt and get my own consulting company. I’m joking – I just went to university.

Ain’t that the truth… Image: memedriod. 

It was here I began to get a more grounded idea of what archaeology was really like, and the sorts of things looked at by modern archaeologists. Most importantly I learned what archaeology could tell us about the history of our own Aotearoa, early Polynesian settlement of the islands, and of Māori history. Every day I learnt something that I didn’t know I didn’t know, and expanded or completely turned the tables on things I thought I did know. I learnt that the difficulty of your multichoice and essay questions relied entirely on who your lecturer was, and that the best way to get amongst other archaeologists and archaeology students was to join them for drinks at the pub. It must be said, however, that university did very little to prepare me for actually working as an archaeologist, although we did have at least one lecture concerning the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 (or so I’ve been told.

The key difference between working in commercial archaeology and my university education, is that we were essentially trained by research archaeologists to become research archaeologists. By this of course, I mean neat 1×1 m excavation squares with string lines, careful stratigraphic drawings and excavating down in 50 mm spits, recording the scene thoroughly at each level, and in some cases, thoroughly and systematically GPS’ing the precise location of every single artefact. On my field school, which took place at a Māori silcrete quarry site, this was a tremendous undertaking, although there is something to be said about how satisfying that level of intensive recording can be. Of course, there are many significant situations in which this approach is still important and used, although these can essentially be narrowed down to ‘well-funded research archaeology digs.’ Some of the most useful techniques our field school taught us was to never get separated from your lunch (trust me on this one), to take plentiful, clear and detailed notes, to write clear information on all bags, and how to survive on 3-6 hours of sleep.

Here you can observe an archaeologist in their natural setting, a green field where they doubtless have been encamped for the night. When observed awake at this time of the evening, an archaeologist can often be found inebriated, and preparing for an early start to the next day. Image: picuki. 

Overall, going to university with the aim of working in commercial archaeology gets a solid A+ for providing a crucial and truly indispensable understanding of New Zealand history and the sort of archaeology you might encounter, but honestly a B- from a practical perspective. Nevertheless, my time at university did give me a number of expectations for what working in this field would end up being like. These can be organised into three broad categories; work outfits, travelling for work, and fieldwork.

Work Outfits

Expectation: The classic archaeology look is professional and a little bit hardcore. Dressed in shades of tan brown or green, usually with a cowboy hat or hardhat (which either way looks like it came straight out of Indiana Jones or The Mummy), the archaeologist looks like they are ready to simultaneously traipse through a desert, a jungle, or navigate a complicated cave system. The archaeologist will have a glowing and even tan. The archaeologists tool kit includes a small water bottle, several types of trowel, detail brushes, and measuring tapes.

Runescape provides a clear outline for a successful archaeological work outfit. You might have noticed the medals adorning his right shoulder – it is important for all who encounter an archaeologist to know their achievements at a glance. I’m personally still working out how to fit my degree onto a badge, but when I do it’s over for you bitches. Image: artstation. 

Reality: You are covered in dirt and mud. Even if you haven’t lifted a finger you are still covered in a fine layer of dust and dirt. Your eyebrows are seemingly permanently four shades darker and are four times more sand than hair. When you have to reapply sunblock, you spread the dirt more evenly across your face; you might not have an even tan (or a tan at all) but at least no one else can tell. In winter this is a lost cause. You are dirty. Everyone is dirty. The tan or green coloured pants are just designed to blend in with the dirt. You are one with the soil. Your work boots are your most valuable asset – they are the most comfortable shoes you own, and they make you feel powerful. You are powerful dirt. You wear high vis at all times; you must be careful with this as wearing high vis for extended periods of time may result in psychological difficulty wearing normal clothes at other times. You have at least two different high vis vests and at least two different high vis coats. You own a pair of wet-weather pants but never think to put them on before going out into wet weather. You own four pairs of safety glasses and all of them have scratches in the middle of the lenses which make it impossible to see, either into the trench or at the ground in front of your own two feet.

Dirty archaeologists: The Dangers of Sieving. Directed and produced by Archaeologists Inc. Image: R. Adam.

We questioned some local archaeologists on the scene. Despite the conditions, one archaeologist when asked said “I’ve never felt more alive.” Back to you in the studio Glenn. Image: Underground Overground Archaeology.

Travelling for Work:

Expectation: An archaeologist travels as part of a small herd. Good companionship is plentiful, alongside campfires, suspiciously well-equipped tents, and a good supply of food and alcohol.

Reality: You live out of a suitcase; this is more annoying than you had anticipated. You always forget at least one vital item. Friendship is tested continuously while you attempt to team-draw a strat; no one can decide what should and shouldn’t be included as a layer, tensions are high.

Fieldwork:

Expectation: An archaeologist is built for fieldwork, and nothing gives them more joy. This involves painstakingly careful 1×1 m square excavations and carefully brushing down artefacts with small brushes. Often situated in a cave for maximum drama. An archaeologists field book is full of detailed notes, maps, and drawings, deciphering of puzzles, clues from earlier in the cave which may later help them open the secret door at the other end of the cave system once they have defeated the forty gun-toting bad guys who somehow made it into the cave first. An archaeologist has impressive arm strength and somehow becomes fitter just by product of being an archaeologist. Always finishes early on a Friday.

Reality: Your field book is full of scribbled notes and maps that you are SURE are oriented north (surely?!), and that word definitely says uh… dandy gnome… no wait-that doesn’t make sense. It’s not exactly puzzle-solving, but interpreting this stratigraphy definitely comes close, and re-interpreting the stratigraphy from the notes in your field book can definitely be classed as puzzle solving. You often helpfully take photos of things but without any notes or follow-up context photos. This is inevitably not as helpful as you thought it would be.

Ancient symbols recovered from an archaeologist’s field notebook. Some interpretation is required. This does not count as useful contextual information. Image: R. Adam. 

You definitely get to brush down artefacts with small brushes sometimes, but you are very rarely working in a cave. There’s also a lot of sand, honestly there is so much bloody sand. You introduce yourself to contractors as ‘your archaeologist for the day’ in order to ‘keep it fresh’ because you are ‘fun’ and ‘cool.’ You spend most of your time watching diggers and then feeling important when you try to make them stop (and then you feel like a school teacher when they don’t see you waving your hand and you have to tap the bucket with your scale stick). A truly shocking amount of time is spent waiting on construction sites thinking about your life choices. You arrived on site when they said they would be digging. Every 20 minutes they say they will definitely dig very soon. You have been waiting for four hours now. Your field method includes confusing diagrams in your notebook with extremely disproportionate and not-to-scale maps of the area of works and where your archaeological feature was encountered.

Gandalf learns first-hand the perils of a poorly labelled site map. The greater the time between recording features and writing the report, the greater your confusion when revisiting notes and photos. Good luck Gandalf, I don’t know which way is north either. Image: Reddit. 

Exercise is inconsistent – most of the time you simply stand and watch the digger, occasionally crouching to take a photo or investigate something. When you do have to excavate a feature, it is likely the most digging you’ve done for months. Because of this excavating makes your arms, legs, and butt sore for days. Cursed Fridays; never respond to a callout after 2 pm on a Friday unless you are fully prepared to be on site until at least 6 pm.

The phone rings. It’s 2pm on a Friday. They say they’re just digging a small section. They say it’s only going to take an hour. They’re lying. Image: TrollArchaeology. 

At the end of the day I think it is fair to say that we are all glad not to be cursed or to be fighting mummies in Egypt, and that it’s probably for the best that we don’t have to carry around guns and fight people (most of the time). I think we’d all rather be carefully brushing artefacts down or watching diggers carefully scraping away clean soil rather than running from suspiciously circular boulders, and most of the time we get to go home at the end of the day, which is definitely preferable to being trapped in a tomb or underground cavern.

It might not be as glamourous or dangerous as the movies and games make it out to be, or as finely tuned as we were taught at university, but recording and preserving the history of New Zealand (or whichever country you are working in, like Canada?? Hi Canada!) is an important and rewarding job. To bring this blog full circle, I am happy to be contributing to the great storyboard of New Zealand history, providing puzzle pieces and filling in blanks where we can. To this day I am still learning things I never knew I never knew, and no matter how long or dirty the day, that’s what makes it worth it.

Rebecca Adam

If you walk along the Avon River by Cashel Street you might catch a glimpse of the small gondolas taking their fares for a leisurely punt through the city and botanical gardens. Today this attraction is aimed largely at tourists, but during the 19^th century Christchurch’s rivers were frequented by many bathers, rowers, and small crafts conveying goods and people. While these activities were mainly confined to the natural channels of the Heathcote and Avon Rivers and their estuary, this blog aims to discuss an early proposal, fashioned during the very foundation of the city, which would have seen Christchurch transformed into a Venice-like city with a thriving water-based system of transportation and communication: the Christchurch canal scheme.

Photograph of the Canterbury rowing club on the Avon River in c.909

In the later 1840s Captain Joseph Thomas was appointed by the Canterbury Association to prepare a 1,000,000 acre master map of the proposed Canterbury Block. In addition, Captain Thomas was also given a budget of £20,000 to undertake important infrastructure works such as the forming of arterial roads and port facilities, and to construct necessary public buildings such as immigration barracks, warehouses and offices in preparation for the arrival of the Canterbury settlers. Together with his survey team, Captain Thomas travelled to New Zealand on board the new 548-ton barque, Bernicia, between July and October 1848. Following their arrival in Canterbury, the surveyors got to work creating triangulation and topographical maps of the land (Amodeo, 2003).

Initially the site of Canterbury’s capital city was to be located at Te Rapu [Teddington] at the head of the bay. It was thought that this site’s proximity to the harbour would allow port facilities to be located within the capital township. However, the Canterbury Association’s elitist scheme of settlement was based on a rural work force supporting a gentry and small aristocracy, which meant the chief town also needed to be in close proximity to suitable farmland. Teddington may have been close to the harbour, but the clay hillside was found to be a poor foundation for largescale construction and there was insufficient pastural land nearby to support a large rural population.

Aerial image showing the location of Teddington at the head of the bay.

With the reluctant permission of both Governor Grey and Bishop Selwyn, Captain Thomas was allowed to personally select an alternate site for Canterbury’s capital city. Despite having his choice of any site on the broad open plains, Captain Thomas ultimately selected a site in the swamplands at the base of the Port Hills, at the place formerly designated as “Stratford” adjoining the Avon River. One of the main influences on Captain Thomas’ decision appears to have been the proximity to the Deans family farm at Pūtarikamotu (Riccarton) which they had been farming since December 1842. The Deans’ orchard, vegetable garden, sheep and cattle pastures, and fields of oats, barley, and potatoes had not only provided the survey parties with much of their initial supplies, but also proved to Captain Thomas the viability of agricultural pursuits in the area.

Detail from Captain Thomas’ 1849 Sketch Map of the Country intended for the settlement of Canterbury, showing the proposed location of the city of Christchurch at what is now Teddington.

Captain Thomas’ selected site has been a source of contentious debate ever since. Siting Christchurch in the middle of a swamp bisected by meandering rivers and creeks was to have a complicating effect on the drainage and sanitation of the city, and would result in decades of debate, planning, and feats of engineering to overcome. But a more urgent issue plaguing Captain Thomas was the difficult task of establishing ready communication between the port town at Lyttelton and the capital township on the plains.

Captain Thomas considered the proximity of the Ōtākaro/Avon River to the city as not only a natural outfall for drainage, but he purposefully sited Christchurch on it’s banks with the view of utilising the river’s channel as a natural highway for the conveying of goods to the city. It is no coincidence that the site known as “The Bricks” was included within the city’s boundaries. The Bricks was a site on the banks of the Avon (near the intersection of Barbadoes Street and Oxford Terrace) which is believed to have been the highest point upstream for boats to navigate. The name was established in 1843 when the Deans unloaded their cargo of chimney bricks at the site (Kete Christchurch, 2017). Captain Thomas appears to have envisioned The Bricks as the capital’s river port to which goods and people could be conveyed from the estuary to the city.

Lithograph of J. Durey’s 1851 painting of the bricks landing site on the Avon River showing the first settlement within Christchurch city.

While the Avon was initially favoured for river transportation, the deeper tidal waters of the Heathcote River eventually attracted more trade (Lyttelton Times, 13/3/1852: 5). Captain Thomas had initially seemed to dismiss the Heathcote River in his original plan as being too swampy, winding, and narrow (in its upper reaches at least), and so its navigability had not been properly established. This was likely on the advice of assistant surveyor Samuel Hewlings, who had been tasked in late September 1849 to conduct a topographical survey of the Heathcote River and had found the experience miserable (Amodeo, 2003). However, it was not long after the arrival of the Canterbury settlers that small European craft began to make their way up the Heathcote’s waters. By December 1851, C. Bishop and G. Gould had formed the Christchurch Conveyance Company and constructed the Heathcote’s first wharf upstream of the Estuary, known as Christchurch Quay, just north of where the Radley Bridge now stands and where the Heathcote runs close to Ferry Road (Penney, 1982: 14). 19^th century photographs show a number of small craft making their way through the Heathcote’s waters.

Photograph taken by the Burton Brother’s Studio in c.1880 showing a ship sailing through the waters of the Heathcote River.

The natural rivers do not appear to have been the only waterways intended to be utilised for communication and conveying merchandise. 19^th century plans of the city show three long straight pathways surveyed between the natural waterways and labelled as “Canal Reserves”. Today these three canal reserves are known as Linwood Avenue, Marshlands Road, and Sparks Road. Had these canal reserves been developed into waterways they would have formed an uninterrupted conduit connecting the Halswell River, Heathcote River, Avon-Heathcote Estuary, Avon River, Styx River, and even as far north as the Waimakariri River.

Map of the Christchurch and Sumner Survey Districts in 1892, showing the natural waterways (indicated in dark blue) connected by the three proposed canals (indicated in light blue).

Despite Captain Thomas’ apparent vision for a Capital city bisected by water-highways, during the early years of the settlement there does not appear to have been any serious contemplation of forming the canal reserves into waterways. One major hinderance to developing largescale shipping enterprises within the city was the shoaling, shifting river bar at the Sumner entrance, which was extremely hazardous for coastal vessels attempting to enter or leave the Avon-Heathcote estuary. Within the first two decades of the settlement, over thirty vessels foundered or were completely wrecked on the Sumner Bar (Penney, 1982: 25). When reporting on the state of the Sumner Bar in 1855, Canterbury provincial engineer Edward Dobson concluded that:

The Sumner Bar is not safe for vessels of upwards of fifty tons under canvass alone. With a steam tug vessels drawing nine feet water may be taken with perfect safety to a little above the Shag Rock at Sumner, but no further. The Avon is only fit for a barge navigation. The Heathcote, being a tidal navigation, may be so improved as to allow any vessel that can cross the bar to come up to Christchurch Quay (Lyttelton Times, 7/11/1855: 3-5).

Although Dobson’s report concluded that the Heathcote River had potential for improved river shipping enterprises, the opening of the Christchurch-Lyttelton railway tunnel in 1867 solved much of the port and city’s communication problems, and so the necessity of undertaking largescale estuary works to expand river communication was not deemed essential.

Whilst the works to form the Christchurch canals were not undertaken, the idea persisted through the 19^th and 20^th centuries. One of the major proponents of the scheme in the 1870s was John Sigismund Jacobsen, a Marine and Civil Engineer, who suggested a plan “to make a canal from the estuary to the Town belt east, 60ft wide at top, 40ft wide at bottom, with a depth of 15ft 6in at the belt, with proper wharves for vessels, silting pits so adjusted that they could receive the whole drainage of the city and suburbs” (Lyttelton Times, 15/10/1872: 3). It was at the turn of the century, however, that the Lyttelton Harbour Board more seriously contemplated the formation of a Christchurch canal from Sumner to Woolston or Linwood (Lyttelton Times, 31/5/1904: 4; 12/8/1904: 2). The engineer to the board, Cyrus J. R. Williams, reported on costs, feasibility and advisability of constructing the two canal options in December 1905 (Lyttelton Times, 14/12/1905: 2). Although there was significant support for the scheme at the time, ultimately it was decided to expend the funds on improvements to the Lyttelton Harbour instead, and the idea never seemed to gain serious consideration again (Lyttelton Times, 22/12/1905: 3). In retrospect this decision was probably for the best, as such a development would have had irrevocable ecological and environmental consequences for the Heathcote-Avon estuary, but it is very interesting to contemplate what Christchurch would be like today if the Canal Reserves been formed into waterways during the 19^th century.

Birds eye view of the proposed Christchurch Canal to Woolston in 1906.

Lydia Mearns

References

Amodeo, C., 2003. Forgotten Forty-niners: Being an account of the Men & Women who paved the way in 1849 for the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1850. Christchurch: The Caxton Press.

Penney, S.W., 1982. The Estuary of Christchurch: A History of the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, its communities, clubs, controversies and contributions. Penney Ash Publications.

One of my favourite features of a pre-1900 building is the beautiful ceiling rose. Ceiling roses are often found in ‘public’ rooms in Victorian homes – usually in the parlour and dining room. But sometimes, if the original owners were that way inclined, they can also be found in the private master bedroom. The material used to create ceiling roses were either plaster, timber or pressed metal and they can be found in a range of different sizes. The primary function of the ceiling rose, other than providing another decorative element to a room, was ventilation. Perforated ceiling roses are commonly found in rooms that had fireplaces to help with ventilation. That’s not to say that the Victorians didn’t also have unperforated ceiling roses for no useful function other than the elegance it displays to guests, because they sure did! Nowadays, when exploring a pre-1900 dwelling, you will likely see the ceiling rose repurposed for modern times – with a light fixture hanging from the centre of the ceiling rose.

The following images include some of the best examples we have come across while recording the built heritage of Christchurch.

This is the first ceiling rose of three found in a building built in 1892. This small ceiling rose was in the front entrance of the dwelling. It is a perforated ceiling rose with moderate decoration. Simple, but catches the eye when you enter. Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield.

Next up in the same 1892 dwelling was this beautiful large ceiling rose in what would have been the parlour. The perforated ceiling rose is highly decorative with leaves and flowers. It was one of the largest ceiling roses I have come across, at 1.5 m wide! Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield.

Last, and certainly not least, for the 1892 dwelling is this small plain ceiling rose found in a small back room. It still functioned as ‘ventilation’, being perforated, but does not have the grand look of the previous ceiling roses. The owners clearly were not expecting guests to visit this back room. Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield.

This medium sized perforated ceiling rose was the only one found in an 1880s house with a school room attached. While ceiling roses are often removed over time due to modification or updating ceilings, no evidence could be found to suggest there were any other ceiling roses in the building. The interesting thing about this ceiling rose was that it was installed in the school room attached to the main building. So not the typical show-off your fancy plaster features to your guests that you expect from the Victorians. Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield.

This has to be one of my favourite ceiling roses that I have come across. This perforated ceiling rose was found in a building built in 1898. It has a beautiful leaf and flower motif with small stars in the middle with a larger star surrounding the inner circle. The 20th century occupants of the site also must have thought it was beautiful, as they haven’t modified it into a lighting feature, leaving it in its spectacular original form. Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield

Now for something a little more abstract. This ceiling rose also came from a dwelling built in 1898 (but not the same building as the previous!) This ceiling rose is very different compared to the previous ones I have shown you. It is not perforated in the middle, instead the ventilation comes from between the decoration at the edge of the ceiling rose. It might be hard to see it in the photo, but there are four vases in the centre of the ceiling rose that have bouquets of flowers. Leaves and flowers, as you can see in this blog post, are very common motifs for ceiling roses. Image: Jamie-Lee Hearfield.

This ceiling rose, and the following two ceiling roses, come from a building built in 1880 that sadly was demolished before my time at the company. However, the photos of them live on! The above ceiling rose has a beautiful leaf design and sneakily hides the ventilation underneath the raised leaves. Image: Annthalina Gibson, Kirsa Webb.

This next ceiling rose is a lot smaller than the previous one but is still highly decorative with a leaf design. The ventilation is also a lot more obvious in this ceiling rose. I appreciate that the owner at the time decided to put the new light fixture next to the ceiling rose instead of through it. Image: Annthalina Gibson, Kirsa Webb.

Another smaller ceiling rose from the same 1880 dwelling. This design is a lot simpler than the last two. It has a flower in the middle and what would have been six leaves surrounding the flower. Now only three of the leaves remain, which could be due to the plaster not lasting the test of time or the leaves being damaged while the light fixture was added. The middle of the ceiling rose is perforated underneath the small leaf design. Image: Annthalina Gibson, Kirsa Webb.

Jamie-Lee Hearfield

This week New Zealand entered its third week of the Covid-19 lockdown, and one of the phrases being thrown around a lot is creating a ‘new normal’. The idea of a ‘new normal’ gives a sense that life, whether for better or worse, is going to change permanently. The feelings of nervousness and slight dread of the unknown created by the phrase are possibly similar to what 19^th century colonists felt on their journey to New Zealand when they thought about the new life awaiting them.

We tend to use the word ‘new’ a lot when describing change. How often have you read a paragraph talking about New Zealand (or literally any other colony) and it included the phrase ‘new life’. “In the 1870s, the government helped thousands of British people start a new life in New Zealand”. “Many British families packed their bags and boarded ships to start a new life in a land they had never seen on the other side of the world”. “They tackled the new life, however, with a kind of proud glee”. I used it as well in the first paragraph of this blog, it’s hard not to.

When we describe something as new, we’re making a comparison, even if that’s not specifically stated. By referring to settlers starting a ‘new life’ in New Zealand, we’re acknowledging that their life in New Zealand was different to their life in Britain (or wherever they came from). This seems obvious. England in the 19^th century was a country that had been occupied for thousands of years. That length of occupation leads to a lot of stuff. I’m using the excellent word ‘stuff’ because I want to make something that’s complicated (and could turn into a long tangent) simple. By stuff I’m essentially referring to the buildings, people, animals, houses, cemeteries, roads, paddocks, etc, that make a place instantly familiar; the landscape (to use a better word), or culture (to use an even better, and probably correct term). But we’re going to run with stuff because it really embodies talking about complicated theoretical concepts in a very vague way.

Even if you’ve never been to England, you could probably guess that this photo is from England. That’s because the brick terraced housing is so instantly recognisable to us as being part of the ‘English landscape’. It’s part of the stuff that makes England, England. Image: : Wikimedia Commons.

By the 19^th century, New Zealand had been occupied for just under a thousand years and had all the same stuff that England had. There were whare, nuinga, ika, urupā, huarahi, mahinga kai etc (translation done using Māori Dictionary). It’s just that the stuff in New Zealand was different to the stuff in England, and wasn’t instantly recognisable to the English settlers as being stuff, and is what leads to the idea that settlers were colonising an “empty landscape”, which wasn’t actually the case.

Settlers arriving into New Zealand in the 1840s and 1850s were faced with, what appeared to them to be, a blank slate. And in response to that, British settlers created a ‘new normal’. That is, they took their stuff from England and recreated it in New Zealand.

Remember that first image where I said that brick terraced housing was quintessentially English, this block of houses in on Durham Street South. Image: Google Street View.

We can see that very clearly from a landscape perspective. Christchurch was a planned city, with a grid system revolving around a central square. Early public buildings emulated styles that were popular in England, that would have been familiar to settlers, and efforts were made to reference Britain in the design of public spaces. Just look at the street names in Christchurch. Most of the streets in the centre city were named after places in England- a clear example of settlers bringing their stuff with them.

Who needs to leave the house when there’s Google Maps. Sometimes on my daily walks I stroll alongside the Avon, which always reminds me of quaint English villages. Image: Google Street View.

The River Avon in Stratford Upon Avon. When we walk around our parks and rivers it’s easy to forget that they’re not ‘natural’. The trees and grass that line their banks, even the fish that swim in them, were all introduced deliberately by British settlers to modify the natural landscape of Aotearoa into the familiar natural landscape of Britain. Image:Google Street View.

The Avon River in 1860. Not the quaint stream with grass lined banks and mature Willow trees that we’re used to. Photographs like this really reinforce the landscape modification that took place with British settlement. Image: Alexander Turnbull Library.

Gothic Revival style is cool. Its use in New Zealand in the 19th century is a reflection of what was fashionable at the time, but I think on a deeper level speaks to the actions of English settlers bringing their stuff with them. Building medieval style buildings in a country that never experienced the medieval period creates a sense of history and connection to the landscape that British settlers probably missed. Image: Google Street View. 

We can see stuff in the physical landscape around us. But we can also see it through the things that the settlers brought with them. New Zealand had strong trade links with Australia, Britain and the rest of the world from the 1850s and whilst settlers from this period may have been entering a foreign country, they weren’t doing it with the same level of complete isolation that earlier visitors faced. If you were living in New Zealand in the first half of the 19^th century, then you were probably relying on local Māori for survival. By the latter half of the 19^th century, particularly in urban centres like Christchurch, that wasn’t the case.

If I was to pick a quintessentially British product from the artefacts we recover, then Lea and Perrins would be it. We find Worcestershire Sauce bottles in most of our domestic assemblages, and more often than not they’re Lea and Perrins. The connection of the product to England is clear just from the name- Worcestershire Sauce after Worcester, the place it was invented. But also, in what the product was used for- cooking. Food is one of the most overt symbols of culture and Lea and Perrins bottles are able to represent the cuisine that British settlers brought with them. Image: C. Watson.

It seems strange that a plate inspired by 18th century Chinese porcelain is a symbol of British culture in the 19th century, yet if you were to ask me what ceramic pattern is the most British then I probably would say Willow. Perhaps it’s not so much the pattern, but the idea of English transfer ware that seems quintessentially British. The majority of ceramic vessels coming into New Zealand were made in the Staffordshire region of England, meaning that people living in New Zealand were able to keep using things that were familiar to them. Image: C. Watson.

And, of course, what could be more British than a pot of tea. Image: C. Watson.

I could keep posting photos of artefacts, because really the vast majority of things we find are British stuff. Even when we have artefacts that speak to local colonial activities, they’re often referencing British things. An easy example of this is aerated water bottles. We find aerated water bottles all the time that have local Christchurch manufacturers’ names on them. Yet the bottles were imported from England and the aerated water produced and bottled using machinery invented in England, so really, they suggest that settlers continued to produce British stuff that was familiar to them, it’s just not taking place in Britain.

This idea, that cultures have stuff and that they take that stuff with them when they move around, is nothing new. It’s basically the bread and butter of archaeology. Archaeologists around the globe, studying hundreds of different cultures and societies, attribute stuff to respective cultures and use the spread of it, and how it changes over time, to explore how respective cultures and societies lived and behaved. When we see British stuff appear in New Zealand, we see that a new culture has arrived. And when we see British stuff continue to arrive throughout the 19^th century, we see that this new culture retains ties to their homeland.

To circle back to the idea of a ‘new normal’, this blog was inspired partially by a tweet that I can, of course, no longer find, but that talked about the idea of the archaeology of Covid-19. The tweet explained that archaeologists of the future will be able to see our response to the pandemic through things like an increase in PPE in rubbish dumps, indicating actions to fight the pandemic, toilet paper, showing the panic buying that occurred, and mass-graves, indicating the success or failure of our actions. This is all true and it’s something that archaeologists today study when looking back at pandemics like the Black Death.

But it got me thinking, that if somebody was to study my stuff at the moment, there wouldn’t be any difference between now and before Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand. My life is exactly the same as before, it’s just that I don’t leave the house anymore. This is, of course, a temporary ‘new normal’. We don’t know what the economic and social impacts of this lockdown are going to be, just that life isn’t going to be the same as before. And so, when I sit here, surrounded by my stuff, and knowing that that stuff is still going to be there in the future, it just might be a little bit different, I’m reminded most of 1890s settlers to New Zealand. Colonists arriving to Christchurch in this period were entering a world that would have been familiar to them. They didn’t have to climb over the Bridle Path, they could catch the train. The roads were metalled, the houses were built, there were willow trees along the banks of the Avon, and they could buy Worcestershire Sauce at the general store. And yet, I imagine, despite being in a country surrounded by familiar stuff, they still felt a nervousness and slight dread at the new life that awaited them. Similar to how I feel now.

Clara Watson