gold mine sites. Midden analysis from camp and settlement sites provides information about diet, with evidence of a preference for beef and lamb in the European camps, and a preference for pork within the Chinese camps. Artefactual evidence found during excavations includes blue and white ceramics, cooking and eating utensils, metal objects, such as buttons, nails and tin boxes (flint boxes, tobacco boxes) and an exceedingly high number of alcohol glass bottles. It is possible these glass bottles were recycled, so archaeologists cannot draw definite conclusions as to alcohol consumption. Within the Chinese camps (such as the Lawrence Chinese camp) artefacts include gambling tokens and Chinese coins as well as celadon earthwares. Although diaries and memoirs about the lives of males in the mining communities exist, little mention or information is known about the significance of female labour and social roles. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that many females in the goldfields took significant roles in mining and the general community. Women in mining communities In the 19th century goldfields, women played significant familial, labour and entrepreneurial roles, such as wives, mothers, prostitutes, business owners and service providers and 'Colonial Helpmeets' (wives who worked alongside their husbands). Women within these communities were young and single, or married with a family, although the community was predominantly male, female family never having intended to move to the goldfields until towns developed with hotels, stores and schools. Yet, there was a female presence in this environment from the start of the gold find in 1861, at Gabriel's Gully. An example is Janet Robertson, who lived with her husband in a small cottage in Tuapeka. It was here in her cottage, where Gabriel Read wrote his "discovery" letter of gold to the Otago Provincial Council. As the news of this goldfield in Gabriel's Gully spread, prospectors engaged in the area, and Janet opened up her home, cooked meals and tended to the miners, as they passed through. Another significant woman present on the 19th century Central Otago goldfields was Susan Nugent-Wood, a well-known writer in the 1860s and 1870s. Nugent-Wood, her husband John, and their children moved to Otago in 1861, as prospectors of gold. Nugent-Wood worked on the goldfields of Central Otago in several official positions. She wrote stories based on her life and roles on the Central Otago goldfields, which provide accounts of labour and social aspects of mining and gender in the