EXCAVATIONS BY ARCHAEOLOGISTS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27441, 30 August 1954, Page 8

EXCAVATIONS BY ARCHAEOLOGISTS

SYSTEMATIC SURVEY PLANNED

ASSOCIATION FORMED IN WELLINGTON (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 28. New Zealand’s leading archaeologists met in Wellington yesterday to form the New Zealand Archaeological Association,. the objects of which are to carry out a systematic survey and excavation of historic Maori sites in the Dominion. The association plans two major excavations for early next year, one in Otago'and one in Auckland. The site for the planned excavations in Otago is a recently-discovered moa hunter-Maori camp site, and the Auckland project is an offshore island with a variety of sites ranging from ancient times to the early European period. The meeting was held at the Dominion Museum. It was ‘convened by one of the country’s leading archaeologists, Dr. H. D. Skinner, director of the Otago Museum. Representatives of museums, university colleges, and amateur enthusiasts attended. > Dr. Skinner was elected chairman of the association, and Mr J. Golson, of Auckland University College, was, elected secretary. The general purpose of the association is to augment the small labour force of any one museum and assist the local museum concerned to carry out any archaeological project which is beyond its resources. The meeting decided that where a project was sponsored by the association in collaboration with a museum, the first choice of the material recovered should go to the museum, and that the records of the surveys should be deposited there. “To date there has been very little systematic excavation in New Zealand, while certain sites of great importance have been ruined by unsystematic amateurs,” said Dr. Roger Duff, director of the Canterbury Museum.