Archaeological digs expected to find up to one million artefacts

[Iain Stuart]

(see The Herald Sun for the full story although it may be behind a paywall)

 

UP to one million artefacts are expected to be unearthed during archaeological digs, due to take place once buildings are demolished to build the city’s Metro Rail tunnel.

 

The new CBD South station will be located 30m under Swanston St, between Flinders and Collins streets, while CBD North will be built below underground between La Trobe and Franklin streets.

 

Archaeological digs will be carried out at both worksites before construction next year.

 

Artefacts are likely to be found reflecting the sites’ early history in the mid-1850s, when they were home to hotels, warehouses, foundries, offices and shops.

 

Heritage Victoria’s principal archaeologist, Jeremy Smith, said archaeologists expected to find building foundations under Swanston St plus artefacts associated with their early use.

 

“It might be as simple as little coins, buttons and beads that fall through the cracks in the floorboards,” he said.

 

“A recent dig at the Carlton brewery turned up a gold sovereign — Melbourne does seem to be a site where artefacts survive quite well.

 

“Remember in the 19th century there were no rubbish removals, so everything that came on site stayed on site.

 

“The finds at the two sites will be different because the nature of those sites was different — the southern end was pubs and small-scale shops while the northern end was more industrial.”

 

As a proud Victorian it’s good to know that we may not have a 65,000BP date (although Kelior might still come good) but it’s good to know we have the most artefacts. Hopefully one will be an old footy! Not sure where 1,000,000 artefacts will be put but I am sure Jeremy Smith will be onto that question.

 

Cheers

 

Dr Iain Stuart

 

JCIS Consultants

P.O. Box 2397

Burwood North

NSW 2134

Australia

 

(02) 97010191

Ia...@jcis.net.au

 

[Gary Vines]

for some odd reason, if your local city News corp paper has a paywall, the same story is usually free from one of the other mastheads - so the Adelaide Advertiser has it without paywall for me in Melbourne 

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/melbourne-metro-rail-project-archaeological-digs-expected-to-find-up-to-one-million-artefacts/news-story/511f2fd9eefb8377e5fad2fdc63ed515

[Michael Lever]

Hi Iain, sorry to harp - but is it possible the mapping in Sydney isn't sufficiently detailed to show outdoors cooking areas?

The attached is a rough and ready mud map from from an MMBW map (1890) showing a block in Carlton. Kitchen sinks are marked 'KS'. I've  dotted red near each one - the vast majority of houses appear to have kitchen sinks in the back yard.

Most of the terraces & cottages I've excavated in Melbourne have had readily identifiable outdoors kitchens, but I'm not certain whether I should be predicting their presence in Sydney houses.

Any thoughts?

There is probably a good paper or at least talk in this.

Cheers

[Peter Marquis-Kyle]

On 28/07/2017 4:40 PM, Michael Lever wrote:
> The attached is a rough and ready mud map from from an MMBW map (1890)
> showing a block in Carlton. Kitchen sinks are marked 'KS'. I've dotted
> red near each one - the vast majority of houses appear to have kitchen
> sinks in the back yard.
>
> Most of the terraces & cottages I've excavated in Melbourne have had
> readily identifiable outdoors kitchens, but I'm not certain whether I
> should be predicting their presence in Sydney houses.

Were these outdoor kitchens, or outdoor sculleries?

--

Peter Marquis-Kyle
www.marquis-kyle.com.au

[Gary Vines]

These were probably simple brick or concrete bowls with a tap above - used for washing kitchenware, but also washing away and slops and even people. Some illustrations can be found on trove 

http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/270578

http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/93478

http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/270563

Oswald Barnett provided some descriptions of the houses without bathroom where tenants wash in the open

http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/270575

[John Pickard]

I love claims such as this. Presumably the “one million” is extrapolated from collections from existing sites, but it does a slight ring of “my site is richer than yours”, which is at least a change from “my site is older than yours”.

 

If nothing else, one million artefacts will keep a lot of cataloguers employed for a loooooong time. I hope someone has thought through the logistics and inevitable huge costs of storing and databasing all that stuff. After all, many museums with full-time staffs don’t hold one million objects. And no museum is going to welcome semi-trailer loads of stuff arriving at their doors without accompanying truck loads of money to pay for its storage and curation. Perhaps this a case where a bit of triage is warranted rather than assuming that every fragment is sacred? I imagine that such a practical approach would be anathema to many people. I recall watching a young archaeologist painstakingly sorting bags of rusty iron objects under a binoc microscope, using paintbrushes and tweezers, and carefully keeping every flake of rust > 2 mm. If there was some scientific reason for this, it escaped me, and the only explanation I got was “my boss told me to do it, and he’s an experienced archaeologist.” Hmmm.  

 

If you recall the 20,000 bits of gravel from Randwick, we are still waiting after > 15 months for a simple identification of the lithology that should have taken no more than a month. How long will it take to sort out 1 M objects?

 

Cheers, John

John Pickard
john.p...@bigpond.com

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[Michael Lever]

3 cheers to M. Lever for his stupendous inability to use Ozarch. If you're wondering why a post on kitchen sinks got into the million artefact thread - its because I thought I was sending a private message to Ian with whom Id been discussing the deep & heady secrets of 19th kitchen locations in lower income Sydney housing.
Now that its out, any comment is welcome I guess.
Michael

[Gary Vines]

Some of those million artefacts might have been dropped in the back yard sinks on Swanston Street.

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello John,

 

Re:  "If you recall the 20,000 bits of gravel from Randwick, we are still waiting after > 15 months for a simple identification of the lithology that should have taken no more than a month".

 

Less that "a month" if one were in a hurry (but it seems the Gov. is not .. on this matter anyway.

I told the Minister it could possibly be done in one afternoon .... by anyone with the right equipment and the right will.    But a month would be okay "real world" estimate.

The cost estimate for a thin section I gave him as $60.

BUT .. offered to the entire exercise FOR FREE if the Government is pressed for cash.

On another Light Rail matter, who here please saw the Channel 9 News broadcast on TV that the light rail from Olympic Park to Strathfield is cancelled?

Channel 9 showed us this as in the attached screen shots from the broadcast.

Notice that they say up the upper left "FIRST ON 9".    An exclusive.   I think they will likely stay the first .. and the only .. with this -- as it is probably Media Misinformation.

Usually its the DT that does this (telling us of later that Meerkats are marsupials; and that the RAN has been at Garden Island since 1788 -- the year they earlier told the readers that Captain Cook established Sydney.

Cheers, John

 

 

From the 9News segment.   ( strathfield-scrapped.jpg , strathfield-scrapped-1.jpg )

 

 

 

 

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