Archaeological data is a rich and unique source of information about Aotearoa’s history, providing tangible insights into people’s lives, the processes that affected them and the landscapes they occupied. This is why archaeological sites are protected by law, and why reports are required to be written on archaeological excavations. But these technical reports are (a) not that accessible to the general public and (b) not that user-friendly for future research. At Christchurch Archaeology Project, we want to change that, to make archaeological data – generally considered to be a public good – accessible to the public and useful to anyone who is interested. To this end, we built the (online) Museum of Archaeology Ōtautahi (MoAŌ), to enable access to collections that would otherwise be hidden away (or lost forever, or stored in a way that is completely inaccessible). MoAŌ demonstrates the power of a relational database to bring the past to life by highlighting the relationships between people, place and objects. If nothing else, the amount of data we had to deal with and the short time-scale we built the museum in will take your breath away! We’ll outline the challenges we faced, the lessons we learnt, the solutions we arrived at – and the incredible opportunities that lie ahead.
Katharine Watson, Christchurch Archaeology Project: Katharine is an archaeologist with over 20 years experience in the field. She founded and ran Underground Overground Archaeology throughout the post-earthquake period in Ōtautahi Christchurch. She sold the company in 2017 and embarked on her PhD, which drew on the data about 19th century houses demolished post-earthquake to learn about why people built the houses they did and to better understand life in 19th century Christchurch. She was a 2023 Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow and is on the board of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
PROJECT COLLABORATORS
Hayden Cawte, Christchurch Archaeology Project: Hayden has been working as a heritage consultant for the last 20 years. He specialises in mining archaeology, pre-European New Zealand archaeology and urban archaeology, as well as the built environment. Hayden has an honours degree in anthropology, a post-graduate diploma in commerce, and a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Otago. He has attended University College London as a Marie Curie Fellow and the University of Cambridge as an Evans Fellow. He has also lectured at both the University of Otago and James Cook University, Australia.
Jessie Garland, Christchurch Archaeology Project: Jessie is an archaeologist and material culture specialist, co-founder of the Christchurch Archaeology Project and a PhD candidate at La Trobe University. She has worked as an artefact analyst in consultant and research archaeology around New Zealand since 2010, including six years in post-earthquake Ōtautahi Christchurch. Since 2018 she has been studying towards a PhD with La Trobe University, using the post-earthquake dataset to analyse the supply of material culture to nineteenth century Christchurch at a city-as-site level. In 2023-2024 she designed and oversaw the development and implementation of the Museum of Archaeology Ōtautahi database.