DISCOVERIES IN CAVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 19 September 1929, Page 12

DISCOVERIES IN CAVE.

MOA EGGSHELL FOUND.

SPEAR POINTS OF HUMAN BONE.

[BT TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] DUNEDIN, Wednesday.

Among tho relics of a past civilisation stored at tho Otago University Museum nono aro moro interesting than those which relate to tho moa. Tho material that has been collected over a long period of years enables an excellent idea to bo formed of this huge bird. In its varioty and extent it is incomparably tho finest collection of this material in any museum in tho world.

An important addition was roccntly secured by a member of tho museum staff, who, in tho course of investigations that go on unremittingly, found on an old Maori sito an almost comploto moa eggshell.

Tho museum staff has e.\cavate.d a small cavo in the low cliffs south of tho Taieri lliver mouth. This cavo appears to have been shut off from tho sea and rendered capable of human occupation by a- landslip, about the timo when tho first moa hunters, tho earliest Now Zealandors, arrived in tho district. On tho sandy floor of tho cavo woro found fragments of a moa eggshell. Tho egg in all probability had been carried into tTio cavo by an oldtimo Maori and eaten thoro. Other discoveries which woro made give rise to speculation concerning the history of Otago heforo European settlement. At tho same level as tho eggshell, and in tho sft. of stratified debris abovo it, some fragments of moa bono woro found. At tho top of (ho debris was a broken clay pipe, a relic, doubtloss, of tho whaling days. In the lowest layer, immediately abovo tho sand, woro found tho broken fragments of a human skeleton. Tho long bonos had been broken into pioces for use in making fish hooks, bird spear points and other small implements. Most of theso had doubtless been carriod away. A lino bird spoar point of human bono was found and thoro was also another fragment, slightly ground, from which a similar point would probably have boon fashioned.