When I was a PhD student under the supervision of Alan Mayne, I spent an exciting few months volunteering on the Little Lon urban archaeological excavation in Melbourne over the summer of 1987/8. Alan went on to collaborate with La Trobe University archaeologists Tim Murray and Susan Lawrence in a series of important reflections on the methodology of urban archaeology as well as interpreting the actualities of city living from the Little Lon assemblages.

Alan Mayne and Susan Lawrence, “Ethnographies of place: a new urban research agenda.” Urban History 26, no. 3 (1999): 325-348.

Alan Mayne, Tim Murray and Susan Lawrence. “Melbourne’s ‘little Lon’.” Australian Historical Studies 31, no. 114 (2000): 131-151.

Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, eds. The archaeology of urban landscapes: Explorations in slumland. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Alan Mayne, “Big notes from a little street: historical research at Melbourne’s “Little Lon”.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 10, no. 4 (2006): 311-322.

One of our PhD graduates Barbara Minchinton—whose 2011 thesis on nineteenth-century land selection in the Otways won the Dennis-Wettenhall Prize—is a co-author of an exciting new book reporting on almost three decades of excavations conducted on the Commonwealth Block site. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne: A Historical Archaeology will be launched on Thursday 23 May 2019 at 6pm in the foyer of the Urban Workshop, 50 Lonsdale Street (free event).

TheCommonwealthBlock-Launch