On the rare times I talk to people about my career, a common comment is “what is there left to find?”. Be it in the archives, or the archaeological landscape of Port Arthur, there’s this idea that convict studies are done. The difficulty often encountered in sourcing funding indicates that this attitude is not limited to those outside the professional sphere.
In this talk I will draw on my experience as a research and commercial archaeologist to attempt to convince you convict studies are in fact alive and kicking. There’s a small group of researchers punching well above their weight, using modern and cool methods of enquiry to look at Australia’s convict past in a different way. Large landscape-scale studies, excavation, record reinterpretation and innovative methods of interpretation have all explored the convict past in new ways. This talk will showcase this research – both the progress and the pitfalls – and demonstrate convict studies are not dead yet.
About the presenter: Richard Tuffin is a historical archaeologist with 25 years’ experience in Australia, the Pacific and UK. He currently works for the University of New England on two research projects and for Extent Heritage as a GIS consultant. As of yet, he is still not sick of talking about convicts.
Featured image: LiDAR view of Port Arthur Historic Site, including Point Puer (Source: LISTmap Tasmania, 2025)