EXCAVATION OF MAORI SITES

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27796, 22 October 1955, Page 12

EXCAVATION OF MAORI SITES

NEED FOR MORE FIELD WORK

VIEWS OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST

The need for collecting more materials from specific archaeological sites in New Zealand, was mentioned by Dr. Robert E. Bell, chairman of the department of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, when speaking to a meeting of the Canterbury Museum Trust Board.

“This means more field work and getting out to excavate these archaeological materials, then sorting them in a chronological pattern,” he said. Dr. Bell, who is at present working at the Canterbury Museum, is a Fullbright research scholar and has had a wide experience in excavating archaeological sites. He has already spent some time at the Auckland Museum and the Dominion Museum, Wellington. He will also do research with the staff of the Dunedin Museum before he leaves New Zealand next June.

“I am quite impressed by the collections I have seen in New Zealand museums,” he said. “A matter that interests me greatly is to attempt to find out when some of the Maori pas [were occupied and try to arrange some of the archaeological materials found there in a chronological pattern. This is important for writing a history.” As well as lecturing at the University of Oklohoma, Dr. Bell is attached to the university museum as a site archaeologist. He arrived in New Zealand two months ago with his. wife and two children.

Mr Donald S. Marshall.' a senior student of the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, is studying the Canterbury Museum’s collection of Polynesian artifacts during an interval from field work among the Polynesians of the Society and Cook Islands.