Classics & Archaeology Career Profiles

Jeremy Smith

BA Hons (Melbourne) 1990 MA (Melbourne) 1994
Current position: Senior Archaeologist, Heritage Victoria, Department of Sustainability and Environment

Jeremy graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1994 with Honours degrees in History and Archaeology, and a Masters in Archaeology. He worked for four seasons with the university team at Tell Ahmar, in northern Syria. According to Jeremy, the highlight of the work in Syria was the excavation of a Neo-Assyrian burial chamber and the discovery of a life-size basalt statue.

In 1995, Jeremy began work as an archaeology consultant in Victoria. The detailed excavation skills that he had developed in Syria were particularly useful on sites like Viewbank Homestead in Heidelberg, and the Kelly & Lucas Whaling Station on Bruny Island, Tasmania. He also worked for VicRoads on the Calder Highway cultural heritage assessment project.

In 1999, Jeremy joined the State government’s cultural heritage agency, Heritage Victoria, and was promoted to the position of Senior Archaeologist in 2003. Recently, Jeremy has really enjoyed being involved in the excavation of the Casselden Place, in Melbourne’s historic “Little Lon” district. He believes that the great appeal of Victoria’s archaeology lies in its variety – from the abandoned forest settlements of Gippsland, through the hidden mining relics of the Castlemaine goldfields, to the early whaling settlements near Portland – there are plenty of challenges for today’s archaeologists!