Staff profile

Dr Peter Davies

Research Assistant

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Historical and European Studies

Martin Building 165, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BA (Hons-Melbourne), MA (Melbourne), PhD (La Trobe).

Membership of professional associations

Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology. Australian Forest History Society. Society for Post Medieval Archaeology.

Area of study

Archaeology
Australian Studies

Brief profile

Dr Peter Davies began his career studying the archaeology and languages of the ancient Near East, and has worked extensively on excavations in Cyprus, Turkey and Syria. His Masters thesis analysed mortuary patterning and social complexity in Early and Middle Bronze Age Cyprus. Since turning to historical archaeology in the mid 1990s, he has completed a PhD at La Trobe University on the material and social life of an early-twentieth-century forest community. From 2003 to 2007 he lectured in the Archaeology Program at La Trobe University, and from 2008 to 2011 he has undertaken an ARC-Linkage Project, ‘An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: the Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886’ with Professor Tim Murray. The Linkage partner is the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. He is the co-author (with Susan Lawrence) of a major new synthesis of Australian historical archaeology, An Archaeology of Australia Since 1788, to be published by Springer in late 2010. He is also Publications Officer and co-Monographs Editor for the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology.

Research interests

Historical Archaeology

- Historical Archaeology

- Industrial Archaeology

Recent publications

Books

  • Lawrence, S and Davies, P 2011, An Archaeology of Australia since 1788. Springer, New York.
  • Davies, P 2006, Henry’s Mill: Historical Archaeology of a Forest Community, Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 2, Archaeopress, Oxford.

Articles

  • Davies, P and Lawrence, S in press, A mere thread of land: water races, gold mining and water law in colonial Victoria, Journal of Australian Colonial History.
  • Davies, P in press, Clothing and textiles at the Hyde Park Barracks Destitute Asylum, Sydney, Australia, Post-Medieval Archaeology 47 (1).
  • Davies, P in press, Archaeology and Religion at the Hyde Park Barracks Destitute Asylum, Sydney, Historical Archaeology.
  • Davies, P and Lawrence, S in press, Harvesting Water on a Victorian Colonial Goldfield’, Australasian Historical Archaeology 29.
  • Lawrence, S and Davies, P 2012, Learning About Landscape: Archaeology of Water Management in Colonial Victoria. Australian Archaeology 74:47-54.
  • Davies, P 2011, ‘Destitute Women and Smoking at the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15 (1):82-101.
  • Davies, P and Garvey, J 2011 Early zooarchaeological evidence for Mus musculus in Australia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology DOI: 10.1002/oa.1244
  • Davies, P 2010, Women and Work at the Hyde Park Barracks Destitute Asylum, Sydney. Australasian Historical Archaeology 28: 13-23.
  • Davies, P 2010, Archaeology of the Hyde Park Barracks. Dictionary of Sydney
  • Davies, P and Lawrence, S 2009, ‘Natives and Newcomers in the Antipodes: Historical Archaeology in Australasia and New Zealand’, in T Majewski and C Orser (eds), International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, Springer, New York.
  • Davies, P 2008, ‘French Island Ruins: An Archaeology of chicory production in Western Port, Victoria. The Artefact 31:4-13.
  • Davies, P 2006, ‘Mapping Commodities at Casselden Place, Melbourne’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 10 (4): 343-355.
  • Davies, P and Ellis, A 2005, ‘The Archaeology of Childhood: toys from Henry’s Mill’, The Artefact 28: 15-22.
  • Davies, P 2005, ‘Writing Slates and Schooling in Victoria’, Australasian Historical Archaeology. 23: 63-69.
  • Davies, P 2005, ‘Space and Structure at an Australian Forest Sawmill’, Historical Archaeology.  39 (4): 51-64.
  • Davies, P 2005, ‘“The Children are running wild…”: Uncovering childhood at a forest sawmill settlement’. In A Forest Conscienceness, ed. Calver M et al. Rotterdam:Millpress.
  • Davies, P 2005, ‘Gabo Island and the Whaling Industry in Far East Gippsland’, Gippsland Heritage Journal 29: 12-19.

Older publications

  • Davies, P 2009, Mice in a Box, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 39(4): 5-7.   Davies, P 2009, Cotton reels from the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 39(3): 2-4.   Davies P 2008, Modified clay pipes from the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 38(4): 11-13.   Davies, P 2008, “A lonely, narrow valley”: Teaching at an Otways outpost’, Provenance 7 (http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/provenance).   Davies, P 2002, Melbourne, in C. E. Orser (ed), Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 349-50.
  • Davies, P 2009, Mice in a Box, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 39(4): 5-7.
  • Davies, P 2009, Cotton reels from the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 39(3): 2-4.

Research projects

  • Cultural Landscapes of Colonial Water Management in Victoria’s Central Highlands (ARC Discovery with Assoc Prof Susan Lawrence) 2011-2015.
  • An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: the Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886 (ARC Linkage, with Prof Tim Murray and the Historic Houses Trust of NSW) 2008-2011.