The 2016 Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology (ASHA) conference was held in Christchurch from 28 September to 1 October with more than 50 archaeologists from Australia and New Zealand in attendance.
NZAA sponsored the opening wine and cheese on the 28th at Riccarton House where our new banner was unveiled. Conference papers sessions included Conflict Archaeology; Christchurch: A City Uncovered; Advances in the Archaeology of the Modern City; Advancing the Archaeology of Public Houses, inns and Hotels; as well as general and student sessions.
Professor Katie Pickles gave a guest lecture on Objects in the Landscape: Finding Christchurch’s Ruptured Past, suggesting that the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 have created a rupture with Christchurch’s colonial past as the city rebuilds and reinvents itself.
Conference dinner was held at The George and was a great success, with all delegates generally behaving themselves. There was also a post-conference field trip on 2 October to Ōtamahua/Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour, the site of a ships’ graveyard, an early 20th century leper colony and where Shackleton and Scott both trained and quarantined dogs and ponies before their Antarctic journeys.
Photo credit:
The ships graveyard on Quail Island during the ASHA Conference field trip (photo Annthalina Gibson)
