For one Otago researcher, a decades-old archaeological project studying eleven tonnes of artefacts from Tiwai Point – including 700-year-old stone adzes – is a significant milestone in uncovering the lives of Aotearoa's early Polynesian settlers.
Stone artefacts, faunal remains and other artefacts extracted from Tiwai, at the entrance to Bluff Harbour, have been in storage for 57 years and are now being transported from the former Southland Museum (now cared for by Te Kupeka Tiaki Taoka Southern Regional Collections Trust) to Otago Museum.
There the artefacts will be analysed, reviewed and catalogued by a small team led by Senior Archaeologist of Southern Pacific Archaeological Research Dr Chris Jennings at the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka.
"The study of the excavated material will give us a greater understanding of the earliest human activity in the Bluff Harbour area and the Polynesian settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand," says Dr Jennings, who studied material from the Tiwai Point site as a major part of his PhD thesis.
"Several projects have been undertaken by researchers since excavations of the site in 1968.
"These studies have indicated that Tiwai Point was a settlement that focused on toki (adze) production using local argillite sources. This was an industrial-level operation, and the toki produced there were distributed over the Southland and Otago regions, with some found at least as far north as Banks Peninsula."
Extensive stone tool production at the site was sustained by hunting, fishing and shellfish gathering activities, he says.
"For me this is an incredible opportunity to continue the work done during my Masters of Anthropology at Otago and my PhD at the University of Queensland."
