The Big Dig Archaeology Weekend was run from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th May 2017, as part of  National Archaeology Week. This program is part of our ongoing site maintenance and conservation work.

Sydney Harbour YHA guests looking down the northern void saw archaeology ‘in action’, as The Big Dig Archaeology Weekend team painstakingly troweled back the top mossy layer of the site and rescued surface artefacts. On other sections of the site, teams worked with our conservator to stabilise remnant walls whilst learning about site conservation.

The team had a great time, learning hands-on archaeological methods and skills whilst exploring The Rocks, with side visits to The Rocks Discovery Museum, Sydney Observatory and Susannah Place Museum. An ice-cream fueled walk around Vivid was an added bonus!

Particular thanks go to Dr Craig Barker from The Nicholson Museum at Sydney University for his very entertaining and informative talk on Archaeology in popular culture, to Dave McBeath from OHM Consulting who ran our site conservation work and to our wonderful supervising Archaeologist, Helen Nicholson, who so generously shared her wealth of knowledge and experiences.

Final thanks go to The Big Dig Weekenders Team of 2017, who so sincerely appreciated The Big Dig archaeological site and took such delight in all the artefacts recovered. You were a lovely team to work with!