Discoveries include shell fish hooks and moa bones.
Two weeks into the excavation at Cooks Cove the site, slowly being revealed,
is proving to be very interesting. All three excavation areas have been
excavated to about 1.2 metres, and getting in and out is becoming quite
a struggle.
Left:The
site with three areas open to a depth of about 1.2m.
Right: School students helping with wet sieving.
Layer 5 in particular will allow us insights into the way of life in
an early New Zealand village. Three groups of local school children have
visited the site, helped with sieving, and asked many insightful questions.
Frank
carefully excavating one of the moa phalanges.
Moa phalanges (toe bones) and a tarsometarsus (bone of the lower leg)
have been uncovered in area O12. Moa, therefore, were being used as food
as well as a raw material for the manufacture of fish hooks. This adds
considerable weight to the argument that the site was occupied within
the first 150 years of New Zealand's settlement, when moa were alive!
Obsidian and chert flakes are more abundant as the excavation progresses
further into Layer 5. Some of these have evidence of damage along the
cutting edges - "use wear" - which will be studied in detail
in the laboratory. Two more bone fishhooks have been recovered from area
O11. Shell fish hooks, rare in New Zealand archaeological sites, were
present (Figures 10.6 and 10.7). These artefacts are special because one
piece fish hooks made of shell are usually only found in sites that post-date
the extinction of moa.
Shell
fish hooks, the one on left is made from Cook's Turban.
Augering
the site to determine its extent.
Meanwhile, another team is working to establish the extent of the site
by using an auger. An auger is a tool that is used to extract soil cores
from many metres deep.
Cores are being taken at 5 metre intervals at transects running east
and south from the site. The soil that is taken up is examined to determine
if it contains evidence of cultural material. This exercise has revealed
that the site extends roughly 25 metres to the south of the excavated
areas. The eastward extent of the site has yet to be determined.
