Springbank Island is strangely significant
site for something that is pretty much a manmade
island, for the most part, in the middle of
lake Burley Griffin.
Dougald: Our course offers
students all of the basic skills that they
need to understand how to work in the field
of archaeology.
Jack: We're basically looking
to find evidence from the pre-European occupation
and then some more European artefacts.
We expect to find nice lithics of indigenous
artefacts as well.
This is a fantastic opportunity
for students to have experience on an actual
archaeological site.
Eli: It's really good
that there's such a close proximity to where
we can actually work and where we study.
It just makes it so much easier and it's a lot
more enjoyable because you're with the people that you study as well.
Claire: At the moment
we're drawing up a stratigraphy of the different
layers and working out how old they'd be.
This morning I set up a dumpy level, which
is when you look at the level of a site. So,
you look at the depth of the area.
Eli: I've just been sieving today, so we can get rid
of all that clay and sand and stuff like that
and just find the smallest things.
We excavated
trenches yesterday, the first metre, metre
and a half of top soils.
By bringing people out here and giving them
the archaeology experience,
it gives them that first step to, hopefully,
continuing on as archaeologists in their own
right.
Siang: I'm quite confident that, once
I complete this program, that I'll be a much
better archaeologist than I was when I first entered.
I've always wanted to be an archaeologist
ever since I was 10 years old.
Jack: I think I'm set on archaeology now,
so it's just sort of now finding out where I want to specialise.
