Free Public Lecture
‘Life and Death on the Otago goldfields’
Professor HALLIE BUCKLEY, DR CHARLOTTE KING AND DR PETER PETCHEY
University of Otago
Sunday 18 August 2019, 2pm
Toitū Otago Settlers Museum
Please join us for the second talk in our 2019 Global Migrations Public Lecture Series when our members Professor Hallie Buckley, Dr Charlotte King and Dr Peter Petchey discuss life and death on the Otago goldfields.
The Otago gold rushes began in 1861 with the discovery of gold at Gabriel’s Gully (where Lawrence now stands). The first gold miners were predominantly European men, with Chinese miners arriving in numbers from 1866, and women and children becoming gradually more common on the goldfields after initial settlement. Recently we have begun to gain unique insight into the lives, experiences and hardships of the people of the goldfields through archaeological excavations at cemeteries associated with the gold rushes. Our work focuses on the first Lawrence cemetery (in use between 1861 and 1867), now private residential land, and the “Chinese” section of the new cemetery (in use from 1867). In this talk we will bring to light the stories of these early goldminers using evidence from the bones and material remains of the people themselves.
