Abstract
Prey and patch choice models, though widely applied overseas, have only been used a handful of times in Aotearoa New Zealand. Drawn from ecology, these models attempt to understand how people’s diets change with the availability of prey types around them. Only one New Zealand study, conducted by Lisa Nagaoka at the Shag River Mouth site in the early 2000s, has investigated these models in any detail. Using the prey and patch choice model, Lisa Nagaoka was able to outline a diet shift from a focus on locally sourced large high-value prey, towards a broader exploitation of smaller species alongside an increase in barracouta fishing, as these larger prey types declined in local abundance.
To gain a deeper understanding of how these models might be utilised in other sites throughout New Zealand, this study works to apply them to the Kaikōura Fyffe site. Like the Shag River Mouth site, the Fyffe site dates to the initial settlement of New Zealand and is similarly located along the East Coast of the South Island. By altering Nagaoka’s models to fit the Fyffe site, we can better understand not only the foraging strategies of these settlers, but also how behavioural ecology models can, and perhaps cannot, be used in the study of New Zealand archaeology. This study does this by conducting a faunal analysis of the Fyffe site assemblage, then applying the model to the results. Through doing so this study was able to gain a deeper understanding not only of the subsistence of those who lived at the Fyffe site in comparison to those who lived at Shag River Mouth, but also explore the uses and limitations of these models in their application in wider New Zealand.