Public Talk by Richard Walter – Archaeology, landscape and identity: appreciating the present by understanding the past

Join us at the museum for a free public talk by Professor Richard Walter.

Entry is free, but please rsvp as seating will be limited if we remain at level 2.

Richard Walter is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Otago and Director of the university research unit, Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (SPAR). Richard specialises in the archaeology of Aotearoa and the tropical Pacific; his work is strongly field based and he has ongoing projects throughout Aotearoa and the Pacific including the Solomon Islands and Cook Islands. His research fields are archaeological science, the archaeology of culture contact, indigenous history and knowledge, material culture studies, the archaeology of exchange, and of colonisation.

In Aotearoa Richard and the SPAR team work on topics around first colonisation, understanding the lifeways of the first settlers as they adapted to the new lands, and on the emergence of the tribal chiefdoms of classical Maori society. SPAR also works on community based archaeological management and conservation programmes in partnership with iwi groups, and has active field projects in Hawkes Bay, Bay of Plenty, Otago and Marlborough.

In the Solomon Islands Richard’s work has focussed on prehistoric colonisation including Lapita settlement, and the emergence of late-period Melanesian diversity. He is currently working on village-based cultural heritage management projects on Santa Isabel and the Arnavon Islands, and on colonisation research in the Western Solomon Islands. In 2017 he published a major book on the archaeology of the Solomon Islands.

Richard has published eight books and more than ninety scholarly papers in the field of Pacific archaeology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.