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Archaeological loss irreplaceable

New Zealand Historic Places Trust Information Release
6 August 2008

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust is pleased that Whakatane District Council has owned up to its mistake, and today pleaded guilty to unlawfully destroying archaeology at Puketapu Pa Scenic Reserve - but says that's only small consolation.

"Puketapu pa is part of a wider, nationally significant heritage landscape of 21 defensive pa perched on the escarpment overlooking the Bay," says the Historic Places Trust's Lower Northern Area Manager, Gail Henry.

"The earthworks carried out by the Council in 2007 were in disregard of the Historic Places Act, and destroyed forever valuable archaeological information from one of the country's most treasured heritage landscapes".

The Council carried out the earthworks for a fence around the scenic reserve without first obtaining an archaeological authority from the Historic Places Trust - despite being advised of this need by their consulting archaeologist.

As a result, the country's lead heritage agency prosecuted the Council under the archaeological provisions of the Historic Places Act.

"The Historic Places Trust doesn't take the decision to prosecute lightly. The Council was told unequivocally four years ago that it would need an archaeological authority to carry out this work, yet they went ahead regardless. Puketapu Pa is one of the most important pa sites in the Bay of Plenty. The Council's action resulted in irreplaceable archaeological evidence and information about this important Pa and the people that live there over the course of hundreds of years being lost forever," says Ms Henry.

"The Archaeological Authority process enables archaeological sites to be destroyed in a managed way so that important information is properly retrieved and recorded. Unmanaged destruction of a site confuses the layers of occupation and information about the different periods when people were living there. Unfortunately, that's the situation we have now."

New Zealand has lost some of its earliest archaeological sites through illegal or uncontrolled earthworks over the years. And once they're gone, they're gone for good.

"This is about loss of heritage. We're disappointed that archaeology has been destroyed in what was such an obvious and important archaeological site," says Ms Henry.

"It's at least something that the Council has put its hand up and admitted guilt - but the damage has already been well and truly done."

The Historic Places Trust plans to offer to meet further with the Whakatane District Council's Chief Executive and other staff to help establish processes that will prevent similar breaches from happening in the future.

For further information/media contact

John O'Hare
,Tel: 09 401 7582 or 027 274 4217

Why Do Excavations Need to be Managed?

Archaeology is about the study of people and provides important insights about how the earliest settlers lived in New Zealand.

In unmanaged soil disturbance the layers of occupation over hundreds of years become mixed up and so the knowledge to be gained is very much restricted. Valuable and possibly new insights into a particular period of occupation can be lost by unsupervised disturbance of archaeological sites.

What Excavation Involves

Managed excavation requires plenty of patience to slowly strip away each soil layer in succession, to work out what may have happened in the past and to understand the sequence of activities.

The basic principle is that each new soil layer is removed completely before proceeding on to the next. All the information from each layer is kept together so that it can be analysed as a distinct component. If you think of a site that has had many successive activities performed on it over hundreds of years, all of these activities have left separate and distinct evidence behind, trapped in different layers of the soil.

It is important to remember, however, that while excavation aims to retrieve as much information as possible, in the process it literally destroys the site forever, so the careful recording of information is vital.

Where possible the NZHPT advocates the protection of archaeological sites for future generations. This is a careful balancing act between preserving our heritage and allowing developments associated with modern living.

Archaeological authority process
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Management & care of archaeological sites
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We are here to help - please contact the Regional Archaeologist in your nearest NZHPT office, or the Senior Archaeologist, National Office

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