Artefacts hold insight to our past

Otago Settlers Museum collections team leader Claire Nodder with some of the items uncovered...
Otago Settlers Museum collections team leader Claire Nodder with some of the items uncovered during development of the Wall Street mall, in Dunedin yesterday. Photo by Linda Robertson.
Historic artefacts uncovered during the development of Wall Street mall have offered an exciting and unusual glimpse of life in one of Dunedin's oldest areas.

Southern Archaeology Ltd director Peter Petchey recently completed a report on the hundreds of items retrieved from the building site between 2007 and 2008.

Along with the 14m by 4m manuka pedestrian causeway, which is believed to date back to the 1850s, archaeologists used found tins , ceramics, boots, a mosaic doorway, parts of a limestone walkway, and what is believed to be a commemorative pin from an 1864 English cricket tour.

A large amount of high-end textiles, such as silk and wool, was also found, a rarity in archaeological sites, as material needed to stay wet and away from air to be preserved.

Mr Petchey surmised a seamstress had worked in the area and dumped her scrap material, buckles, buttons, brass pins and cotton reels regularly in one spot.

While the causeway was "evocative of the mud" of early Dunedin, the other items shared a more personal story about the working class in the heart of the city, he said.

"It was a very interesting site in terms of the early social history of Dunedin."

He recently presented some of the items to the Otago Settlers Museum, and collections team leader Claire Nodder described them as "absolutely astounding" and "really, really exciting".

The museum will use them to illustrate how Dunedin moved from a "shantytown" to a major city, and to demonstrate similarities to modern-day life.

"We romanticise the past, but their lives were much like ours," she said.

Many of the items, along with part of the causeway, which is still undergoing preservation treatment, will go on display in the refurbished museum next year.

Another part of the causeway will go on display in Wall Street mall.

- ellie.constantine@odt.co.nz

 

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