Abstract
In the northern South Island, the area northern Te Wai Pounamu (NTWP) is defined appropriate to a regional investigation of pre-European culture change. It is argued that the Māori sequence of this region is relevant to a range of interpretative problems in New Zealand's archaeological past.
Preparatory to this investigation, the international and New Zealand literature on culture change is reviewed. Two primary investigative foci of change are identified in NTWP; subsistence economy and stone tool manufacturing technology. A chronological scheme of Early, Middle and Late Periods based on firmly dated ecological events and/or independent radiocarbon ages is defined so as to order the archaeological data without recourse to unproven scenarios of cultural change and association.
The Early Period subsistence economy is assessed in some detail. An Early Period settlement focus is documented along the eastern Tasman Bay coast in proximity to meta-argillite sources. Early Period midden remains suggest that several genera of seal and moa were exploited, and that people were fishing in eastern Tasman Bay during the warmer months of the year. From the Early Period fishhook assemblages of Tasman Bay, manufacturing change is inferred related to the increasing scarcity of moa bone over time. It is argued that lower Early Period settlement of the larger northern South Island was focused on the north-eastern coast to Rangitoto (D'Urville Island), while NTWP was characterized by smaller stone working communities operating in summer.
In contrast, moa-free middens in Awaroa Inlet and Bark Bay of the western Tasman Bay granite coast present a physical dominance of Paphies australis, and finfish species suggesting, along with the dearth of Austrovenus stutchburyi, occupation outside of the warmer summer months. These middens also present an absence of seal and a paucity of bird bone, while sharing a robust 15th-16th centuries AD radiocarbon chronology. With the dearth of all bird species from granite coast middens in general, and evidence that the less preferred kokako (Callaeas c. cinerea) was caught during the occupation of Awaroa Inlet N26/214, it is suggested that cultural regulations beyond immediate subsistence needs were also operating at this time.
From southern Tasman Bay, the archaeological investigation of the important Appleby site N27/118 suggests that the people associated with the extensive horticultural soils of Waimea West otherwise consumed finfish and estuarine shellfish in (non-summer) season, kiore (Rattus exulans), dog or kuri (Canis familiaris), and several small evidence of Māori tradition, archaeological charcoal, and the approximately 16th century radiocarbon chronology for N27/118 and the associated Appleby gravel borrow pit N27/122 places the advent of extensive Waimea horticulture within the post-moa, lower Middle Period Māori economy. The Haulashore Island archaeological assemblage of south-eastern Tasman Bay with a similar material culture to Appleby is also bereft of seal and any diagnostic moa bone.
This Middle Period evidence is considered in a larger comparative perspective, where the absence of seal from 15th-16th centuries Tasman Bay middens is interpreted as a factor of human predation. A secure radiocarbon chronology suggests the convergence of this loss with the diminishment and loss of selected avifauna, and the subsequent advent of large horticultural complexes in the northern South Island compensated for the loss of faunal calories in a seasonally economy and a managed ecology.
The evidence of stone tool use is also reviewed in some detail for NTWP, following the definition of an adze typology appropriate to the classification of meta-argillite tools. It is clear that meta-argillite is the dominant material of adze and (non-adze) flake tool manufacture throughout the Māori sequence of NTWP, while granite coast quartz remains generally subdominant. Beyound the apparent loss of the laterally-hafted adze, the evidence of adze change is generally subdominant. Beyond the apparent loss of the laterally-hafted adze, the evidence of adze change is generally reflected in shifting typological proportions, and in new manufacturing technologies and dressing techniques. Functional change may be inferred in the loss over time of large meta-argillite points and blade tools associated respectively with the manufacture of one-piece moa bone fishhooks and moa and seal butchery. The exclusive identification of hammer-dressed adzes with hump backs and steep bevels in Middle Period assemblages is related to the advent of horticultural intensification. More generally, adzes of the upper Early and Middle Periods are increasingly characterized by round sections, while hammer-dressing is employed more frequently and extensively reduced from riverine meta-argillite and recycled banks. Collectively, these changes reflect a developing emphasis on economy and opportunistic exploitation. From this interpretation, and evidence that meta-argillite adze length and the size of high quality Ohana source flakes diminish over time, it is suggested that accessible, high quality and appropriately shaped meta-argillite rock became increasingly scarce through intensive quarry manufacture.
In conclusion, the coincidence of diminishing rock and faunal resources over time is related in a speculative anthropological model of culture change. It is proposed that the 14th-16th centuries Māori economy of NTWP, and by implication and inference, many other regions of New Zealand, was characterized by a resource crisis which either precipitated or reinforced a broader trajectory of culture change. It is suggested that influential leadears perceived a linkage in the loss of high quality rock and important subsistence fauna at this time, and that distinctive technologies, institutions and ideologies of Middle Period Māori society were influenced by, and/or developed from, this perception. Finally, it is recommended that the data of an archaeological Māori culture sequence be ordered and tested within a radiocarbon based chronological scheme, rather than the still generally used model of 'Archaic' and 'Classic' cultural periods. It is also suggested that New Zealand archaeologists should look beyond the functional-ecological imperative to consider more holistic anthropological explanations of change in the pre-European Māori past, with a focus on integrated regional sequences.