Swete Kelly, Mary Clare and Sarah Phear (Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University)

Rescuing the Remains: Examining the Aftermath of Fire at the Australian National University Archaeological Store

On 18 January 2003 a fire front swept through Canberra. The fire destroyed five hundred homes and there were four deaths. This sudden and unpredicted firestorm resulted from bushfires that had been burning in the nearby mountains. It was only in the aftermath that the impact upon the extensive archaeological collections held at the Australian National University (ANU) stores in Weston were fully realised. The building was destroyed, walls caved-in and much of the site was too unstable to access. It was some time before anyone was allowed access to the site and almost six months before the Department of Archaeology and Natural History (ANH) was given the go-ahead to salvage what they could. Many of the collections affected were seminal sites used in the archaeological interpretations of Australian, Southeast Asian and Pacific prehistory. A full-scale salvage effort involving the excavation of remains took place over a period of two months. This poster outlines the processes involved in the initial retrieval process.

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