Project Aims 

AWSANZ Conferences 

Locational data standard 

Sources 

Contacts 
 

Regional Contributions 

South Australia 

Tasmania

The AWSANZ project (the Archaeology of Whaling in Southern Australia and New Zealand) is an international collaborative project initiated and directed by Dr Susan Lawrence at La Trobe University in Melbourne and Dr Mark Staniforth at Flinders University in Adelaide. The project addresses aspects of the archaeology and history of Australasia's colonial whaling industry.  

The impetus for this project stems from an understanding of maritime and terrestrial historical archaeology as disciplines that share much in the way of common interests, methodologies, and sources of information. Despite these similarities, examples of projects that have sought to engage actively with both discipline areas are rare, and practitioners continue to be isolated in more narrowly-focused research programmes that routinely exclude either maritime or terrestrial perspectives. There is much to be gained from adopting strategies that draw on the strengths of both areas in order to investigate questions of broader significance.  

Because of the broad base and co-operative nature of the project, it represents an innovative model for industry/academic collaboration which should result in improved outcomes in areas of research, public participation, and interpretation regarding archaeology, and effective conservation and management of the underwater and terrestrial archaeological sites associated with the whaling industry in Australia and New Zealand.