PACIFIC SCIENCE AND N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 12

PACIFIC SCIENCE AND N.Z.

CONTRIBUTIONS AT CONGRESSES DR. DUFF REPORTS ON TRIP “New Zealand is able to make a special contribution to Pacific science, representing as it does the largest Western community in the Pacific islands proper, and by the same token we need, in our own interests, to overcome By. regular attendance at such congresses the penalties of our peculiar geographical isolation,” said the Director of the Canterbury Museum (Dr. Roger Duff) reporting to the Museum Trust Board on his recent visit to the Eighth Pacific Science Congress m the Philippines. “It was gratifying to realise how well the New Zealand delegates stood up to international competition in their respective fields of science and our participation served to retain the important part New Zealanders have played since the inauguration of the Pacific Science Congress,” Dr. Duff said. “New Zealand was among the six foundation member countries when the Pacific Science Council was founded at Honolulu in 1920, our representative then, being Dr. Charles Chilton, professor of biology at Canterbury College.

Pre-History Congress "In the Pre-History Congress, which was founded as an offshoot; of the Pacific Science Congress and first met in 1932, the importance of New Zealand’s participation derives from our interest in the origin of the Polynesians, who almost certainly migrated from the Philippines or Celebes be-, fore the close of the new stone age on the remarkable ten-thousand-mile island hopping migrations, which eventually brought the Maoris to New Zealand. At the recent session, attended by over 50 anthropologists from all countries with an interest in Pacific pre-history, New Zealand was represented by Dr. H. D. Skinner and myself and it was obvious that the archaeological work carried out by the Otago and Canterbury Museums in particular attracted great interest from the other delegates,” said Dr. Duff. “In addition to Dr. Skinner’s paper on the relationship of Polynesian artifacts with North Pacific forms from Formosa to British Columbia, I contributed two papers, which were accepted for publication in the proceedings, their themes being, the proSress of archaeology to date in New iealand, and the origin of the Polynesian stone adze forms as a Pacific island extension of the Philippines middle and late Neolithic (2250 to 200 8.C.) ages. “In summing up the value of such a congress it is not possible to record it in terms of a profit and loss balance sheet,” Dr. Duff said. “The conference enabled me to make personal contacts and arrangements for exchange of publications and collections with the leading anthropologists working in the Pacific field, notably from China, Japan, Indo-China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hawaii l . These contacts will return continuing dividends to the Canterbury Museum.”