Abstract
This thesis is an investigation into the industrial archaeology of water power, specifically water wheels, in Otago, New Zealand. An archaeological site survey of some thirty- seven nineteenth and early twentieth century water-powered industrial sites is used as the basis of an investigation of the technology adopted in Otago, the origins of that technology and the mechanisms by which it came to be found here.
What at first appears to be a British technology directly transplanted to Colonial New Zealand, on closer examination proves to be the product of local and international influences and developments on a technology that can be traced directly back to the Hellenistic world of the first century B.C. While the British influence was strong, what appears in Otago is a unique adaptation of an international technology to a new environment.