Jasmine Weston
Current position
Archaeologist, Austral Archaeology
Where did you study?
University of Otago
How did you become interested in archaeology?
I've always had a love of history for my whole life, starting with Pompeii. I started doing some archaeology papers at university which I saw as a practical side of history.
What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
I spend a lot of time working in historical archaeology; recently I have been spending time working on Berrima Gaol and am very excited to get back into doing some historical artefact analysis for some projects we have in Wollongong.
Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries
I was doing some buildings archaeology for the old Cadbury Factory in Dunedin New Zealand which had replaced an old beer factory. We thought all of the original buildings located on the site had been cleared in the 19th century when Cadbury's was built. During the recording work I found the outlines of the original windows from the first building that had been constructed on the site. These had been filled in and plastered over, showing the building was incorporated into the later factory. This was a pretty cool outcome and completely changed the heritage values of the site.
Tell us about a funny / disastrous / amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology
I was working at a large factory site that was being decommissioned. At the end of a lunch break we were going over some notes in one of the empty buildings. Suddenly water started pouring in through the doors flooding the area we were sitting in. We started running around around trying to save our paperwork and devices, running outside to find a dry area. We were met by the tradies working on the site who had been very intently emptying all of the water mains and accidentally flooding us. They thought it was quite funny.
What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
Putting all the pieces of a story together and being able to identify the events that have happened at a site.
Follow up reading