Specialists are delving into the past at Lawrence.
The fifth official dig at the Lawrence Chinese Camp (LCC) is under way.
‘‘It’s the fifth dig here but this big project really kicked off in 2020,’’ LCC vice-chairwoman Rachel Gimmell said.
‘‘So far we’ve spent over $190,000 on studies, plans and consents . . . This is the actual start of the work, literal spades in the ground.’’
The $3.5 million 4-5-year plan to develop the site of the Chinese gold rush settlement as a historical destination began last week, with connection to infrastructure in Lawrence, more than half a kilometre away.
In February LCC chairwoman Denise Ng described plans to develop New Zealand’s earliest and largest Chinese settlement into a ‘‘major destination’’ with the help of sponsors including the People’s Republic of China.
Restoring the historic stables, joss house (temple) and Empire Hotel, which is planned to house New Zealand’s first museum of Chinese goldmining history, is the aim of making it a destination, but as a Heritage 1 site that was built prior to 1900, LCC’s earth cannot be turned without archaeological supervision.
A services trench for water, waste and hopefully, internet, is being dug while other earthworks will soon help deliver electricity to the site’s three buildings. The archaeologists are on site to check out anything of historical interest that is dug up while the work is being done.
In its heyday between 1860 and 1910, there may have been more than 30 built structures at the centre of hundreds of shanties and tents, yet it was always referred to as a camp, not a town.
University of Otago Southern Pacific Archaeological Research senior archaeologist Chris Jennings said they were looking for signs in the soil.
‘‘We look out for where the original, yellow clay has been cut and dug, and gets filled with different types of soils from above.’’
Dr Jennings worked closely with the excavator operators, who are scraping as little as 10cm of depth at a time, and monitoring areas which looked to have been disturbed in the past.
Most of the soil is not checked, but sites of interest are examined with Radarch ground-penetrating radar to help identify areas that are marked out for old-fashioned ‘‘targeted hand excavation’’ by archaeology students from the university.
Glass, steel, bones, coins, pieces of tools and a model dog have all been uncovered since the trench work began.
Finds will take about six months to analyse at the university, where hundreds of boxes of finds are already in storage.
‘‘The truth is, most of what’s littered around can’t tell us much after a while,’’ Dr Jennings said.
‘‘But here and there we can hope to find something with detail and context to tell us something we hadn’t realised, as well as uncovering parts of foundations, or thoroughfares and the original drainage systems.’’
