Maori artefacts in Fiordland cave

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32800, 28 December 1971, Page 12

Maori artefacts in Fiordland cave

“The Press” Special Service I DUNEDIN, Dec. 26. ‘ A collection of Maori arte-! facts found recently in a cave; in a Fiordland sound prob?; ably came from early European times, and suggested someone subsisting there, according to Mr G. S. Park, the assistant director of the ■ Otago Museum. The artefacts were found by Mr A. M. West, of River-1: ton, who was on a diving: expedition. He gave them to!I the Southland Museum,; which sent them to Dunedin for preservation. Mr West found the relics! when he discovered an old:

[Maori bed in a cave on an [island. He shifted a stone—!and unearthed a woven bag ,and fine piece of cord; a small finely woven bag; a more coarsely woven bag, either unfinished or unravelled; two firesticks; two wooden fishing lures and dog’s jawbone, possibly for hooks; some dog-skin; some small stone cutting tools and ;scrapers, and a whetstone. Mr West also found a dried piece of kelp, tied at one end. of the sort used to store items such as muttonbirds and a length of smooth hardwood stick that could have been a spear shaft. The bed in the cave had a base of punga trunks, with layers of miro, manuka and fem leaves. A large midden in the cave was full of blue mussel shells Write u fluence could be seen in the sharp edges, suggesting metal tooling, on some of the relics. The relics will be treated I'with liquid nylon to con- ! solidate them, so they can be examined more closely.