Contact - Chinaman's Gold

There's a popular misconception about archaeology that it's a sort of glorified treasure hunt, that we do it a little neater and a little slower than anyone else, but I think that's wrong. It's a time proven system whereby different cultural assemblies found in different sites are compared and contrasted with each other and so the items that are found on site aren't looked at in isolation.

– Archaeologist Neville Ritchie talks about his work

I think if you're digging in one hut you get quite close to them because you're sorting out all the different things they lived with...

– A student archaeologist talks about her work on the Cromwell excavation

The early immigrants were initially treated with curiousity, but also a measure of respect."It seems astonishing how these industrious people manage to get gold when everyone else has concluded there is none", the Queenstown-based Lake Wakatipu Mail reported in 1870...

– Mark Andrews, in an article on Chinese goldminers in New Zealand, The South China Morning Post, 16 July 2017

Energy is the gold of the 1980s, and people are calling this project Otago's second gold rush. But paradoxically the production of hydroelectricity here will mean that many of the sites which yielded this province's early wealth will disappear forever.

– The narrator on the development of hydroelectric projects in the Clutha and Kaiwara Valleys

For the past three years archaeologist Neville Ritchie has been following the footsteps of miners ... his job: to find, record and investigate historic and prehistoric sites in the area which will be inundated by the hydro lakes. It's the first time an archaeologist's been attached to a major public works scheme in this country.

– The narrator introduces Neville Ritchie