Abstract
This report presents an analysis of the artefactual assemblage from the Oashore whaling station and is largely a revision of a work originally submitted as a Masters Thesis (Harris 2005). Shore whaling was a brutally efficient industry for a short period in the 1830s and 1840s and represents some of the earliest European settlement in New Zealand. The excavation of the Oashore whaling station, located on Banks Peninsula, South Island of New Zealand, in January/February 2004 represents the first part of a major research orientated project on shore whaling in New Zealand. The present paper aims to document the range of material culture available to the Oashore whalers to help shed some light on what life was like for a shore whaler and to investigate how these communities compare or contrast with other contemporaneous European sites. To this end the Oashore artefactual material, exclusive of faunal remains and charcoal or wood, has been described, quantified, and dated where possible.