Dr Sarah Hayes describes the buttons discovered at Viewbank Homestead and hypothesises about which members of the Martin family they may have belonged to.

Click Here to listen to Susanna Collis speak about the conservation of the buttons.

Further Information

TRANSCRIPT

SARAH HAYES: Buttons are one of those artefacts that we consider as archaeologists as a frequently lost item. It's the sort of thing that you break, and it pulls off your clothes. And then you drop it, and it falls through the floorboards. And in that way, these sort of objects make it into the archaeological record and really just stay there forever.

Within the homestead itself, a bone button carved by hand in a very rudimentary fashion has an E on it. And it probably belonged to one of the Martin daughters. There was an Emma and an Edith. So we don't know which one. But it probably was a personal item of one of the girls. And she possibly even engraved that letter herself.

These are great artefacts, because you can really get the sense of the person. It was part of their clothing. It was part of their everyday presentation.