MUSEUM OF NATURE

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 16

MUSEUM OF NATURE

Stone Materials Of Great Importance To Maoris

/Contributed-by the Canterbury Mtueum) ■ As a man of the Stone Age, more particularly the Neolithic (New Stone Age) the ancient Maori knew more about the sources of certain minerals and rocks than we do today. To him they were of economic importance ; the standard of his culture depended largely on a detailed knowledge of the sources of stone materials which, with the exception of greenstone, are mostly of little use to modern man.

Before the introduction of metals in the late eighteenth century, the Maori was entirely dependent on materials in their natural state for the manufacture at his tools and implements. Stones and rocks were selected according to their suitability for the pUrpose required. Hard brittle stone that could be broken to a sharp edge was made into knives, a softer but tougher stone couM be ground into

adzes, and sandstone of various grades made ideal grindstones. Some- manufacturing processes, such as the flake reduction of a block of stone into the rough shape of an adze before grinding, required considerable skill. Even the simplest flake tools, such as spawls knocked off greywacke pebbles were not the product of haphazard blows. The size and shape of the hammer-stone, the force and angle of the blow, how the greywacke stone was held, and the spot on which it was hit, all affected the flake which was produced. These greywacke spawls, which are one of the commonest types of tool .to be found on many Canterbury archaeological sites, were used as knives for cutting foodstuffs, bones and wood, and as scrapers tb remove flesh from bones and fat from skins. They were first recognised by Julius von Haast when he was investigating a moa-hunter camp site near the mouth of the Rakaia river in 1869. Haast realised that they were essentially the same as similar scrapers used by Shoshone Indians of North America in the dressing of buffalo skins and called them by the Indian name (teshoa). A few varieties of stone were used only in the area in which they were found, while others, such as volcanic glass, were traded or other-

wise obtained for use throughout New Zealand. When a village or camp site is being investigated the archaeologists keep all the pieces of stone that have been used there at the time of occupation. When the source of the stone is identified, and other sites are found containing the same stone, trade and migration routes can gradually be worked out Very often this provides confirmation of traditional routeways, but in other cases evidence is obtained of very early overland routes long forgotten and not mentioned in traditional histories. Very often, too, it is found that settlements of the same approximate age used a par-, ticular type of stone which is not found in sites of earlier or later occupation, even in

the same area. This is probably largely because of the use for which the stone was required. When moas were common in the South Island over 400 years ago, large knives suitable for cutting up the cafcases were skillfully made of orthoquartzite, a hard brittle silicified sandstone. But when the moas became scarce and were eventually exterminated, there was no longer any need for such large blades; small flakes of flint or chert, which was easier to obtain, were then used for a variety of cutting purposes. Greenstone on the other .hand did not come into com-

mon use until comparatively i recently—about 200 yean be- 1 fore European settlement On older sites it is not at all common and does not appear to have been valued, probably because efficient methods of cutting and shaping such

a hard tough stone had not been developed.—-M.M.T. The illustration shows a greywacke spewl knife, one of the simplest and moot common tools found on South Canterbury archaeological sites.