What is beneath Adelaide’s car parks?

My name is Tom Georgonicas; I am currently undertaking a graduate diploma in archaeology and heritage management. As part of my degree I am working on a directed study that aims to investigate the archaeological potential (if any) that could be found under the ground level car parks of the city of Adelaide. For the purpose of this study, the study area is bound between North Terrace, South Terrace, East Terrace and West Terrace. The study is only focussing on ground level open car parks, not multi–storey car parks.

My aims for the directed study are to:

• Map a current map of ground level car parks in the city of Adelaide on to the 1842 Kingston map and the 1880 Smith survey of Adelaide.
• Identify the most likely sites with surviving archaeological potential on both maps and see if they overlap.
• Research what kind of development took place on these sites. Have they interfered with any potential archaeological deposits?
• Create a scale of archaeological potential for the sites based on my research.

Needless to say, the research is quiet immense and has required hours upon hours of research. To make things simpler I have decided to use Google Earth’s image overlay function, which has allowed me to overlay both the Kingston map and the Smith survey over a satellite image of Adelaide. Results so far have been surprising and promising, with the historical maps revealing structures that no longer remain.

Here is an example of how I am approaching the study.

Below is a satellite image of the south-west corner of Adelaide (corner of West Tce and South Tce)

Now after adding the Kingston map via image overlay.

Here are the results after the image overlay function. Lots 626 and 696 reveal that one point, there were structures.

The Smith survey is more detailed, going as far as naming some businesses, churches and buildings. I should also note that the image overlay function is only being used as a guide. The real results will be obtained by historical research.

You can access these maps by the State Library of South Australia by clicking the following links online.

1842 Kingston Map

http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=61&c=1402

1880 Smith survey

http://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/record=b1378035