The age of the archaeologist

Press, 11 December 1981, Page 14

The age of the archaeologist

Every summer, more and more groups of people can be seen working feverishly in paddocks — measuring, staking out straight lines, digging,' sifting, and generally absorbed.

These are archaeologists, of greater or lesser expertise and professionalism, rediscovering and preserving New Zealand history. Humans have lived in this country for at least 1000 years, but it is only for the last 200 years that there are substantial written records. The record for all the preceding centuries, and also for much of the first century after New Zealand’s discovery and settlement by Europeans, comes from orally transmitted traditions, and from the physical remains which survive in the places where people have lived, worked, and fought.

These places are the country’s archaeological sites. It is from the evidence contained within them that the archaeologist is able — by excavation, recording and analysis — to learn of the activities of those who lived before recorded history began.

The Historic Places Trust protects archaeological sites. It has published a pamphlet on how to recognise an archaeological site and then what to do about it. The Historic Places Act, 1980, provides for the recording, protection, and preservation of archaeological sites, and gives the Trust the powers to fulfil its duty. Under the Act, an archaeological site is “any place in New Zealand which was associated with human activity more than 100 years ago (or which is the site of a shipwreck more than 100 years old) which can, through investigation through archaeological techniques, provide evidence as to the exploration, occupation.

settlement, or development of New Zealand.” All archaeological sites are protected under the act, whether or not they are registered as such.

Archaeological sites in New Zealand take many forms. Most obvious and best known are the pa sites which show evidence of fortification in the form of ditches and banks. They are most often sited on headlands, promontories, or ridges, but they may also be found on more level ground or on low-lying islands in swamps. Artificially levelled terraces, often associated with rectangular or circular depressions which were storepits for kumara, are usually easily recognisable. At times they are to be found in extended complexes which indicate former village settlements.

Ancient Maori cultivation areas can be recognised by

their lines or walls of loose stones or stone heaps. The soils themselves may have been altered by the addition of gravels. Food refuse and other waste material was often deposited in heaps, usually in association with charcoal and stones blackened and broken from hangi cooking. Even though sites may have been disturbed by later land use, long-persisting items such as bone, shell, and stone remain as indicators of former occupation. Places of early European occupation are often known in part from the surviving record, but all of them — military redoubts, mission stations, whaling stations, and trading stations — contain evidence which no historic . documents record. Careful recovery and analysis of this evidence provides a more complete picture of that occupation?

Certain localities, because of their particular attributes, tend to attract people and these attractions may remain unaltered as the centuries pass. The result is

continued occupation or frequent reoccupation of a sit?. Often there is modification of the evidence of the former occupation in the gradual accumulation of the evidence of all ages, and it is this complex of evidence with w’hich the archaeologist works. Ploughing, road-building, and quarrying have always affected archaeological sites, but the rate and scope of destruction in recent decades has been such that it h<s become a matter of vital concern. The Historic Places Trust believes New Zealand’s situation is becoming critical. Knowledge of the past is being destroyed without ade-

quate record and often without adequate reason.

This destruction may not be done deliberately; it is often done in ignorance. The farmer, engineer, and bulldozer driver may be quite unaware of the presence of the site or of its importance. It is within the power of the farmer, industrialist, contractor, developer, and others who work the land, to destroy almost totally the remaining evidence of the past. To breach the provisions of the 1980 act can be expensive. An offence under the act is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000, plus a further $5OO a day for every day during which the offence continues. In all cases where proposed work will adversely affect an archaeological site, an authority to carry out the work is needed from the Trust. Only the Trust may authorise the destruction or modification of sites.

By

OLIVER RIDDELL