Council Effort To Save Artifacts

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31906, 6 February 1969, Page 1

Council Effort To Save Artifacts

The Kaikoura County Council has stopped unauthorised persons from fossicking for Maori relics at the scene of last Thursday’s find of a Maori tiki and other artifacts.

This was announced yesterday after the arrival of the director of the Canterbury Museum (Dr R. S. Duff). He said he was appalled at the method of excavating the area at South Bay.

Dr Duff, who was accompanied by Mr M. M. Trotter, the Canterbury Museum archaeologist, said that when he arrived at 11.30 a.m. yester-

day a grader was being used on the site —a most terrible thing. He asked the council to cease work temporarily on the* isite. “I am very disturbed that ' this sort of thing is going on and 1 appeal to curio hunters to hand any finds to the cus- , todian of the Kaikoura Historical Society,” Dr Duff said. Although the council had no authority to claim any artifacts already found he hoped that what was found from now on could be safeguarded by the society. The participants in this morning’s search were Mr H. J. Hewson, president of the 'Kaikoura Historical Society, ;and Mr A. H. Kennington, of Seddon, who is chairman of the archaeology division of the Marlborough Historical Society. He is an authority on the Maori occupation of the Kaikoura coast. During the search this morning a greenstone adze was found.

Mr Kennington said the area was one of the richest in the South Island for greenstone discoveries.

Last Thursday a boy aged 14. Wayne Jones, picked up a valuable tiki while fossick-

ing behind a bulldozer which was forming a new road. Since then other Maori artifacts have been found and a number of Christchurch people and other visitors to Kaikoura are believed to have taken artifacts away.