This book presents research into the urban archaeology of 19th-century
Australia. It focuses on the detailed archaeology of 20 cesspits in The
Rocks area of Sydney and the Commonwealth Block site in Melbourne. It
also includes discussions of a significant site in Sydney - First
Government House. The book is anchored around a detailed comparison of
contents of 20 cesspits created during the 19th century, and
examines patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, presenting analyses
that work towards an integration of historical and archaeological data
and perspectives. The book also outlines a transnational framework of
comparison that assists in the larger context related to building a
truly global archaeology of the modern city.
This framework is directly related a multi-scalar approach to urban
archaeology. Historical archaeologists have been advocating the need to
explore the archaeology of the modern city using several different
scales or frames of reference. The most popular (and most basic) of
these has been the household. However, it has also been acknowledged
that interpreting the archaeology of households beyond the notion that
every household and associated archaeological assemblage is unique
requires archaeologists and historians to compare and contrast, and to
establish patterns. These comparisons frequently occur at the level of
the area or district in the same city, where archaeologists seek to
derive patterns that might be explained as being the result of status,
class, ethnicity, or ideology. Other less frequent comparisons occur at
larger scales, for example between cities or countries, acknowledging
that the archaeology of the modern western city is also the archaeology
of modern global forces of production, consumption, trade, immigration
and ideology formation. This book makes a contribution to that general
literature
