NEW ZEALAND - Hangi Pit Final Treasure - UPDATES

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                                                              Hangi pit final treasure






Claire Connell
- The Marlborough Express
| Friday, 23 January 2009





Digging deeper:
Archaeologists Mika Ngamoki, left, of the East Coast,
and Jean Spinks, of Otago, complete work on the site
for the Rangitane tupuna return in April.
The white flags indicate where artefacts have been found.



A 700-year-old hangi pit, the first one of its kind found in New Zealand, has been discovered on the final day of the three-week Wairau Bar excavation, but it will be left largely unexamined.


The exceptional find has been described as bad timing, because the excavation has ended, with no plans to continue digging.

Excavation work stopped yesterday, and the team closed the site today. The purpose of the dig was to prepare for the return of Rangitane tupuna (human remains) and artefacts which were taken from the site up to 70 years ago.

Leader Richard Walter said a huge, stone-lined hangi pit had been found in one of the artefact excavation sites.

"It had been dug and constructed as a hangi, and filled in with rubbish."

The team uncovered a rubbish pit last week containing dog and bird bones. Further digging this week revealed the two-metre-deep hangi pit.

"We have never seen one like this before on any archaeology site in the country. We were not expecting to find it.

"It was completely new to us and we are very interested in finding out about it."

Dr Walter, an associate professor of the University of Otago's anthropology department, said there could be several more on the site. Analysis would reveal the significance of the pit.

The discovery of the hangi pit was described as bad timing by Dr Walter, because archaeologists begin to close up the site today.

"Often during an excavation, we find something new at the finish and then we have to stop that's archaeology."

There were no plans to return to excavate the site.

The excavation has revealed moa and bird bones, stone adzes, the remains of three houses and a Haast's eagle bone.

"We have addressed Rangitane's concerns and got the quality of information that we really wanted.

"We can walk away pleased with our work, and with no regrets.

"But we still have that idea that there is still research here for future generations."

Dr Walter said the team was leaving with new information about the site that it did not have before, including the findings of the 700-year-old house remains and the hangi pit. The team also had better quality site maps and better site samples. It will spend tomorrow night in Blenheim before leaving on Sunday.

Material found on site will be taken to the University of Otago for analysis over the next two years, with bird bone taken to Canterbury Museum.

Rangitane chairperson Judith MacDonald said the archaeologists had done a fantastic job.

"We are now looking forward to the next step in bringing our people home."

Rangitane development manager Richard Bradley said: "I feel really positive about what the future of the site holds for our people and Maori people in general."

Anyone entering the site could face criminal conviction and a maximum fine of $40,000. "Archaeologists in New Zealand are always worried about looters and fossickers," Dr Walter said. "I think people will come over, but Rangitane will be watching the site."

The two-hectare area has been prepared for the reburial of Rangitane tupuna and artefacts taken by the Canterbury Museum for display and study purposes between 1938 and 1959.

Three sites would be used for the tupuna reburial in April. The area is also being excavated for artefacts. The project is a partnership between Rangitane, Canterbury Museum, the Department of Conservation and the University of Otago.

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SCOTT HAMMOND,
The Marlborough Express

LUCKY FIND:
from left, Rangitane's Jeffrey Hynes, Department of Conservation's Steve Bagley and Rick McGovern-Wilson from NZ Historic Places trust inspect the newly discovered hangi pit on the final day of the excavation.








SACRED SOIL DIGGING DEEP






The Marlborough Express
| Wednesday, 04 February 2009 
SCOTT HAMMOND

It's 9am and already the heat is scorching at the Wairau Bar.

The Wither Hills are dry and the bar looks peaceful. At first glance there is no clue as to what lies behind the trees.

For the last three weeks, this site has been home to 15 archaeologists and five Rangitane iwi members. They are conducting perhaps one of the most important excavations ever completed in Marlborough they are preparing the area for the April return of Rangitane tupuna (ancestors' bones) and other artefacts removed from the site more than half a century ago. They are also using the opportunity to comb the area for further hints of the area's past.

The remains of the Port Marlborough wharf sit abandoned not faraway. The area is stoney and sandy. As we get off the boat (the only access aside from a private road), the home of Wairau Bar resident and site manager is visible. Long, dry logs form a fence around his property. He has lived out here for a decade.

While there are now more people on the bar than he has ever been used to, he says the "word hard, play hard" ethic of those involved in the excavation as well as the feeling of camaraderie has been tremendous.

"It's great. We are getting things right. It's really positive for everybody. All the negatives are being turned positive."

It is hard not to get emotionally attached out here. The contrast of the blue sea and straw coloured grass is stunning. There is a real sense of community. You get the feeling something extremely special and significant is taking place. I want to talk in no more than a whisper because the place has such a spiritual vibe and I feel honoured to get a close-up inspection.

Between 1938 and 1959 the Canterbury Museum excavated at least 44 graves at the bar, taking items including tupuna for display and study purposes.

The latest dig, which started January 5, is a partnership between local iwi Te Runanga a Rangitane o Wairau, Canterbury Museum, the Department of Conservation and the University of Otago.

The 10-kilometre boulder bank at the mouth of the Wairau River is considered one of the most significant archaeological sites in the country, having provided the first conclusive evidence that New Zealand was originally colonised from East Polynesia.

In 1939, 13-year-old local schoolboy Jim Eyles first discovered a grave, complete with a hollow moa egg and personal ornaments made from sperm whale teeth.

Following this discovery, in 1942 Roger Duff, an ethnologist at Canterbury Museum, began an extensive excavation, which continued for many years after.

The artefacts uncovered then allowed Roger to establish conclusively that moa hunters formed part of early Maori culture. Initial reports on both projects were published, and the Wairau Bar results were developed further in Roger's book, The Moa-Hunter Period of Maori Culture, first published in 1950.

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Fast forward to 2009, and the huge wave interest not to mention the extensive media coverage this site is now attracting. In all, three separate sites are being prepared for the return of the tupuna.

Canvas tents line the camping area. There is an IT tent and equipment tents. The food on offer includes club sandwiches, potato salad and freshly carved meats. And the archaeologists need it. Days are long, the sun is merciless and their work is historically important.

I watch as a young woman picks up a tiny hand brush. She carefully and cautiously brushes around an area to reveal the tiniest sliver of bone. Her eyes focus in deep concentration.

Digging is carried out with hand trowels and small shovels, with workers guided by the latest technology. Machines such as the fluxgate gradiometer, an instrument capable of reading what lies underground without disturbing the soil, selects sites worthy of excavation.

Hans Bader, a field archaeologist from Auckland, works the fluxgate, which uses the Earth's magnetic field to detect soil content.

Out at the Bar, archaeologists are covered from head to foot in dust. Among them is excavation leader Richard Walter. He's a friendly man with an ability to explain quite detailed scientific processes without any puzzling jargon. After completing his PhD at Auckland University in the 1980s, he became an archaeological specialist focusing on the Pacific. Now an associate professor of the University of Otago's anthropology department, his love for his work is clear.

"This is an archaeological site that every New Zealand archaeologist knows about. I thought that nobody would be allowed to come back.

"This time a year ago, I didn't think we would be excavating ... it's been an honour and a privilege for me."

He says the dig will likely be the last at the bar.

"It places a special burden on the team to get it right ... we have to get some basic answers. It's about getting the results so we don't go away thinking we have to go back."

As well as preparing and selecting the sites for the tupuna reburial, the team has unearthed remains of dwellings, a fully intact stone adze, a dozen intact moa leg bones, and a bone from an extinct Haast's Eagle.

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The biggest find came on the last day of the excavation a two-metre deep hangi pit. All finds, once analysed over the next two years at Otago University and Canterbury Museum, will help paint a picture of what life was like on the Wairau Bar for the estimated 200 people who once lived there.

And how is day-to-day life on the site for the archaeologists today?

"It's very easy. We have a wonderful site manager in Wayne [Abbott], the camp is being managed very well," says Richard.

He is used to working in the field and in labs. Here, he and his team and are in the spotlight.

"Sometimes I feel intimidated ... it's a big site and everybody's watching. Every morning when I get up I'm conscious of that ... but it's quite exciting," he says.

"Every job I do is different, but this is so different to most of my other projects. Here our work is embedded in a set of cultural ideals and objectives with the direct participant of iwi and that's great.

He says while his team always works closely with iwi, the objectives are usually driven by science.

"Here, the project is driven by iwi. We are working with them."

Rangitane development manager Richard Bradley has been staying at the site as much as possible, and providing tours of the area to visiting kaumatua.

"I've always grown up being told this was a place where our people lived in a big concentration. It is re-affirming for me that this was our `Vatican City'. It's an opportunity for our people to reconnect and reaffirm. It is opening up six centuries of history for us."

He says while a look at the site six months ago by archaeologists gave an insight into what might unfold, "now the richness of the site confirms for me that was the reason why our people chose to live here, and why the place continues to be valued".

"I didn't think we would be out here in my lifetime doing this."

He says the uniqueness of the site was confirmed by the "huge wave of interest" in the site from people all over New Zealand and the Government agencies involved.

"It's quite special to be involved in it," he says.

"I have to acknowledge Duff [Roger Duff] and co because his efforts protected the site for further generations of iwi."

He says that while many iwi had connections to the area, Rangitane had continuous and uninterrupted occupation for many years.

He gestures to where MacDonald's tavern and inn once stood in the 1830s.

"It was the only two-storey building on the bar."

He laughs and says it was likely the pub was one of the main social areas, and many stories from Rangitane people referred to it.

"It was one of the key points of life on the site," he says.

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Maria Codlin, 19, is a first-year archaeology student at Otago University. This is her first excavation.

"I really wanted to go on one. It's good because everyone is pretty chilled out. I found out at the end of last year that I was coming ... I've been looking forward to it."

She says the bar can get quite windy and, surprisingly, quite cold as well.

But at the moment it's scorching. Maria has found a moa bone, and she's delighted.

Rangitane senior member and Wairau Bar resident Jeffrey Hynes has brought one of his cousins to see the site. Melanie Riwai-Couchis the youngest daughter of his uncle Denis MacDonald, who recently passed away. Melanie is clearly moved by the occasion. Jeff tells her something shortly after we talk and she smiles, tears streaming down her face.

It's easy to forget until you are on the site that the tupuna are Rangitane's people; their ancestors.

"Denis was the last of 15 children born in the Wairau Bar area. The generation before them lived on the bar," says Jeffrey.

He has mixed emotions as the archaeologists uncover their findings.

"Now all the information and knowledge is coming out, it's really interesting.

"These archaeologists", he says pointing to the team working a few metres away, "are the most accommodating bunch of people. I mean she's working flat out." He points to Maria, who is busy excavating a small patch of dirt.

"But if I wander over to them and want to ask a question, they're happy to stop and explain what their doing."

But with knowledge comes concern.

"I worry about the future. I worry when all this stuff is all uncovered ..."

Jeffrey confesses he is wary some people might come to the site and help themselves to any historical artefacts they may find.

But he says there is a lot of support from everyone involved. The law will also protect the project, with any convicted trespassers looking at a maximum fine of $40,000.

 

Paul Scofield, a curator of vertebrate zoology at Canterbury Museum, arrived the second week of the excavation. Today, he's working on a pit full of animal remains dog and moa bones and is bagging them up for preliminary identification before they are sent to Otago University.

"I'm most interested in this period of Maori culture when they were interacting with animals that are extinct now."

Their job is to check on observations in the past and confirm: "And to make new discoveries," he adds.

"It's a very significant excavation. The Wairau Bar was one of the sites that helped us understand the earliest human arrival."

But for the local iwi involved, the most important part is yet to come the return of their ancestors. "We are really pleased with the way it has gone," says Rangitane chairperson Judith MacDonald.

" I think the archaeologists have done a fantastic job, and we are looking forward to the next step in bringing our people home."

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                                     Last dig at important burial ground as bones reinterred






Alex van Wel - Canterbury |
Tuesday, 06 January 2009

Excavation work is under way at an old burial site on the Wairau Bar in Marlborough as archaeologists also prepare to rebury ancient Maori bones.


The site just outside Blenheim and considered one of the most important in New Zealand has not been deeply probed since the 1960s.

Local iwi Rangitane refused to give consent for further archaeological work until its ancestors' bones removed by Canterbury Museum in the 1940s and 1950s were returned to the earth.

A deal with the museum and Otago University last year paved the way for their reinterment, expected in April.

Yesterday, at a powhiri to welcome Otago University archaeologists, team leader Richard Walter said he was conscious the world would be watching.

"If I do anything wrong, my career is over," he said. "This is likely to be the last time any archaeologists work on this site ... and we have to get it right.

"We don't want to gather more material to put on museum shelves.

"We are here to get the tupuna back into the ground with the least possible damage to the site."

The 15 archaeologists will spend the next three weeks locating suitable places to rebury the bones, and gathering fresh information on the historical inhabitants.

Rangitane chairwoman Judith MacDonald described the start of the dig as hugely significant.

"When we started this, we didn't see that there would be a need to have archaeologists. We didn't see that we should be having to meet other people's needs as part of the project. For us, we had a very simplistic view that our people had been taken unceremoniously out of the ground and taken away from their lands and that they should simply be returned and put back into the ground."

However, MacDonald said the iwi recognised the modern expertise of Otago University's archaeologists, and trusted their ability to return their tupuna without disturbing graves.

Walter said his team would focus on the different occupation layers at the site.

"One of the layers is a village site, so we want to be able to identify which layer it is, get very good radiocarbon dates from that layer and from that we will be able to match that information to the material that is in the Canterbury Museum."

Early excavation of the Wairau Bar provided the first direct link between New Zealand and the islands of East Polynesia.

Bones from the site have been dated back over 700 years.




The Historic Places Trust has sponsored a daily blog on the dig. It can be found at www.wairaubar.com

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                                        Ancient Maori house site gives insights into Wairau's past





 
Claire Connell
- The Marlborough Express
| Thursday, 15 January 2009

Excavation on the Wairau Bar has revealed the remains of a Maori house, thought to be part of a settlement 700 years ago.


The remains suggested the site was home to a "fairly sizeable community, possibly a couple of hundred people", said Richard Walter, who is leading the excavation.

A two-hectare area on the bar is being prepared for the burial of Rangitane tupuna (human remains) and artefacts that were taken by the Canterbury Museum for display and study purposes between 1938 and 1959. The area is being excavated for artefacts at the same time.

Dr Walter, who is an associate professor of the University of Otago's Anthropology Department, said two digs on the western end of the site had revealed significant material.

In one area, what looked like the corner of a 700-year-old house had been found.

"There is evidence of structure and layout the plans of the village itself. It gives us a much fuller picture."

The discovery of a number of expertly made adzes suggests the house was the home of an adze maker." Dr Walter said any new findings would add more details to previous knowledge about skeletons and artefacts found at the site.

Another location revealed a rubbish area, which contained bones of sea mammals and fish, and birds such as moa and pigeons. Pieces of shell necklace, bone tools, fish hooks and dog remains were also found.

Dr Walter said the items were significant because they gave an understanding of past site activity.

Archaeologists could compare the artefacts with other sites in New Zealand and see the different relationships.

Rangitane development manager Richard Bradley said the excavation was an opportunity for the tribe to reconnect and reaffirm with the site, and their history.

"It's opening up seven centuries of history for us it's quite special to be involved."

Bones and artefacts found on the site would be processed at the University of Otago.

Dr Walter said he was surprised at the large amounts of undisturbed areas within the site.

"We thought most would have been destroyed by past ploughing."

Excavation was finished on two sites for the tupuna reburial. The team had three or four days work left on the archaeological dig sites before starting on the third and final tupuna burial site.

It is expected the tupuna will be returned in April.

The project is a partnership between Te Runanga a Rangitane o Wairau, Canterbury Museum, the Department of Conservation and the University of Otago.




Follow the Wairau Bar excavation process daily at

www.wairaubar.com.

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FIRST FIND:

The first complete artefact to surface in the
Wairau Bar excavation is an adze, probably
made from tahanga basalt from Coromandel.

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                                             Excavation team finds house remains






Fairfax Media
| Tuesday, 20 January 2009
WAIRAUBAR.COM

As the Wairau Bar excavation enters its third and final week, the discovery of two more 700-year-old house sites is providing more insight into the way life on the bar used to be.


Archaeologists have uncovered holes on the site where foundation poles once stood and confirmed fireplaces and tool-making areas within the housing remains.

"We have also found a few personal ornaments like necklaces," said Dr Richard Walter, the man leading the excavation. "The houses are about four metres by four metres and probably belonged to a family."

Walter, a University of Otago anthropology associate professor, said the team had not expected to find such houses and the discovery was "a very pleasant surprise".

The houses were typical of others from this age found in New Zealand, but he had seen similar structures in Polynesian sites.

The discovery of further houses over the weekend indicated that the site was of a large community, made up of small family units.

Residents lived by hunting, agriculture and fishing.

The weekend's excavation revealed "thousands of stone flakes" at one house, confirming it belonged to an adze maker.

Walter described the houses as "small, simple domestic dwellings".

The three-week excavation by archaeologists is the first stage in reburying Rangitane tupuna (human remains) in their resting place. Between 1938 and 1959, 44 graves were excavated and the contents, including human remains and artefacts, were studied and put on display at Canterbury Museum.

The project is a partnership between Te Runanga a Rangitane o Wairau, Canterbury Museum, the Department of Conservation, and the University of Otago.

The excavation is needed before the remains can be returned. Additional excavation is taking place in selected locations.

 

The unearthing of the houses follows the discovery of a bone belonging to a Haast's eagle last week. Now extinct, the Haast's eagle was the largest to have lived. Fairfax