Abstract
Plants have been a ubiquitous component of humanity’s diet and subsistence since the dawn of our species. They are the clothes we put on our backs, the fuels for our fires, the food we eat, touching every aspect of our lifestyle and subsistence. Despite this, the study of plant remains in archaeology is something that has remained largely on the sidelines. Wild plants remain even more sorely overlooked, with the bulk of paleoethnobotanical studies in Polynesia focusing on the analysis of exotic domesticated cultivars such as taro and kūmara.
Aotearoa is a landmass unlike the rest of the islands of Polynesia, set apart by its scale, climate, geology, and endemic biodiversity. Throughout much of its landmass, cultivation of tropical Polynesian crops cannot be practiced, resulting in intensive exploitation of wild resources. Wild plants make up a significant component of plant-human interactions – seeing use as staple foods; as crafting materials for weaving, cordage, building, and ornamentation, as well as in rongoā Māori (traditional Māori herbal medicine). These species hold great functional, cultural, and spiritual significance to Māori communities, and yet their existence remains largely overlooked in archaeological research.
In the face of the difficulty of studying archaeologically fragile plant remains, microbotanical analysis has come to the forefront as a potential solution. This study tests the viability of phytolith analysis as a means of identifying the presence of culturally significant native wild medicinal plants in the archaeological record in Aotearoa. It examines phytoliths from modern reference material of thirteen wild plant species with traditional rongoā use and carries out a case study analysing sediment from Opoutama Cook’s Cove, the site of a Māori village whose occupation spans back to the first century of human arrival in Aotearoa. In doing so, it aimed to determine a) whether the selected native rongoā species produce phytoliths that hold diagnostic potential, and b) whether recognisable plant phytoliths can be identified in sediment samples from archaeological sites in Aotearoa. This study is used as an opportunity to not only investigate a potential new avenue for examining ancient plant use in Aotearoa, but as a chance to examine the reasons why wild plants have traditionally been so overlooked in archaeology in Aotearoa.
The results of this study demonstrate that a high proportion of the native plant species analysed produce phytoliths and that there is indeed potential for some of these phytoliths to be diagnostically significant – notably phytoliths from nīkau (Rhopalostylis sapida) and toetoe (Austroderia richardii). The sediment analyses from Opoutama demonstrate that phytoliths and other silicious materials can be recovered from archaeological strata, providing the opportunity for identification of diagnostic remains. Like pollen, phytoliths hold strong potential as a means of researching ancient plants in archaeological and palaeoecological contexts and may serve as a key tool to help clarify our understanding of ancient plant-human interactions in Aotearoa.