EARLY STONE TOOLS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25598, 13 September 1948, Page 8

EARLY STONE TOOLS

THOUSANDS OF SPECIMENS OBTAINED IN N.Z.

MR H. S. M’CULLY’S COLLECTION

When Mr H. S. McCully, of Peel Forest, was a boy, an elder brother ploughing on what is now the Temuka golf course unearthed a large number of Maori greenstone tools, the ground having been once the. scene of a Maori camp. Mr McCully became particularly interested in collecting stone tools, and now has a collection which is probably unique in New Zealand. It numbers thousands. Many cases of specimens have been sent to the Otago Museum.

“When I started collecting stone tools, I regarded them more or less as curios,” said Mr McCully, in an interview with “The Press.” “In searching all over the South Island for adzes, chisels, and other tools fashioned to a shape, I was struck by the number which appeared to be merely splinters struck from a boulder. On closer investigation I found that many of these splinters were of a class of material foreign to the locality, and nty interest quickened. As my collection grew, I attempted a classification, and found that these so-called splinters must have played an important role in the everyday needs of the makers.

“This class of tool was produced by percussion, the original edge of the detached flake being the sharpest procurable in stone. The form of the. flake determines the shape of the edge, and in turn the form of the flake is determined by the shape and part of the mass from which it is struck. This type of tool belongs to all periods from the Piltdown man,” said Mr McCully. A factor that has greatly impressed Mr McCully is the great similarity of tools found in all parts of the world. Specimens from overseas he has always been able to duplicate from his own collection. This world-wide identity in flake tools has been attributed in some quarters to racial contact, but as no change had taken place in their form, a simpler explanation, in Mr McCully’s opinion, is that because of the flaking qualities of the material used it could be wrought in only one way. “After many years of collecting, I am of the opinion that the earliest inhabitants of South Canterbury were carvers in wood, as most of their tools were made of fine-grained quartzite,” he said. “Collections from historic Maori camps, on the other hand, show that much work was done in greenstone, with quartzite practically absent. However, when the local Maori obtained glass, he wrought it in the same way as stone. “It is reasonably certain,” he continued. “that New Zealand has been inhabited by man for a much longer period than is generally.thought, probably a thousand, if not.thousands of years before the Maori migration of 1350,” he said.