Moa bones discovered

Press, 23 February 1985, Page 3

Moa bones discovered

Bones from three moas have been found in the Broken River area. A Christchurch man, Mr Bruce Currie, found bones from one moa about two weeks ago and these, with the other bones, were recovered by an archaeology team from the Canterbury Museum. The bones from two of the moas were fairly broken up, said the museum’s director, Mr Michael Trotter,

last evening. They were about 4000 years old.

The other bones were better preserved, but only about 1000 years old, he said. None of the sets was complete. They had been taken back to the museum and would be cleaned and repaired, said Mr Trotter. “We are not planning to put them on display, but they will be useful in our research collection.”

Another archaeological dig at the Fyffe site in Kaikoura had turned up some good artefacts, said the museum’s liaison officer, Ms Beverley McCulloch.

The dig, under the New Zealand Archaeological Association, was mainly salvage work, but it had confirmed the continuation of walls which were thought to have surrounded the kumara gardens, she said.