Q What jobs did you do before this one?
A I worked in retail through university, but as soon as I could start doing archaeology I started volunteering.
Q Why did you choose this job?
A That’s the question my parents ask every day. Since I was a young child I was interested in it. So, as soon as I started looking at university I looked at archaeology.
Q How did you get into it and when?
A I started university in 2003 and graduated in 2008 with a masters of arts in archaeology. I did a lot of volunteer work while I was studying to get my experience up.
Q What qualifications and training did you need?
A If you want to be able to sign off on a legal document for archaeological consents in the corporate world, you need to have a masters degree.
You can practise as an archaeologist without a masters, and many people do [usually with an honours degree in archaeology], but if you want to be the person who signs the legal documents, you need the masters. That’s what we call a principle archaeologist.
Q What personal skills do you need?
A To get along with people in restricted environments. Sometimes when you’re in the field you’ll maybe be in a tent for a month.
Having good statistics and mathematics knowledge is also important. And being pragmatic, logical.
Q Any physical requirements?
A Most excavations you’ll be shovelling, you’ll be bucketing, you’ll be seiving.
You work in the rain. You work in the snow. So if you like being outdoors it’s great.
But you’ll actually have to be able to sit and write a report too. Working on site is only about 20-30% of the job. The rest is writing, researching and interpreting data.
Q What do you do on a daily basis?
A Organise site work, do artefact analysis, historical research, writing and interpreting what we’ve discovered and engaging a lot with our clients.
Q What is the most challenging aspect?
A Trying to convince people that archaeology is important. I used to get yelled at a lot on site but people’s perceptions of how archaeology adds to a project is definitely changing.
Q Are there any particular health and safety issues?
A It’s the same as for any contractor on site.
There are strict health and safety protocols — we’re often working around massive diggers and in some instances in trenches more than 1.5m deep.
Q What is the most interesting assignment you’ve had?
A We were working on the water upgrade down in Vogel St in 2013/2014. Buildings’ basements in that area had a tendency to flood because seawater would come up the old drainage channels. So they were upgrading those pre-1900 pipes.
What we found was these huge old drainage channels. They were incredible. Massive Victorian-era sewers.
Initially they were big open bluestone channels. People used to fall into them and die. They were quite a hazard. As areas in Dunedin got reclaimed they vaulted them in brick.
They’re about 2.5m wide, 2.5m high, and they have small channels in the floor’s centre, with ledges to walk alongside. And we have them all over the city.
That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It was like something out of the movies. The workmanship and the sheer size of them.
Q How has the job changed since you started?
A People just understand now that archaeology is important, that it’s important to know where we’ve come from and where we’re going.
What we have in Dunedin you don’t have in many places around the world. The sheer wealth that was poured into buildings, into the city, you just can’t do that anymore.
Old Dunedin was horrifically wealthy and it’s still standing. We’re very lucky.
Q What’s something people generally don’t know about the job?
A Everybody thinks archaeology is paleontology. Dinosaurs.
Also, I don’t need a whip.
Q What are the highs of the job?
A Finding out about parts of the country’s history you never knew before. Just getting an insight into what it was like.
Q What are the lows of the job?
A Bad weather. Getting yelled at. But that’s about it.
Q What’s the strangest thing you’ve had to do?
A At the Glendermid Tannery site [Sawyers Bay] we had to wear full white decontamination suits because, despite people working in that tannery their whole lives, it was a very toxic site. And it’s quite hard to do archaeology when you’re wearing full gas masks.
Q What is the salary?
A Roughly $40,000 to $80,000, but if you’ve got a master’s $55,000 to $80,000. You can also start your own company.
Q Where will you be 10 years from now?
A Probably doing this. Expanding the business.
To be precise
If you were not doing this job, what would you be doing?
I don't know. I actually don't.
What did you want to be when you were 10?
An archaeologist.
What should 10-year-olds aspire to today?
Whatever they want to be.
Name one thing you would change about your job?
Have more experienced archaeologists in New Zealand.
Do you get weekends and public holidays off?
Mostly. Occasionally you have to work weekends, nights or very early mornings.
