Nelson Historical Society Journal, Volume 2, Issue 2, June 1967

Heaphy River Excavations

Heaphy River Excavations

Situated at the mouth of the Heaphy River in North-west Nelson this is one of the most picturesque sites imaginable. The river carves its way through rugged limestone and granite country to the sea and large groves of nikau palms growing almost to the coastal edge, enhance the tropical atmosphere of the area. If one can bear with the over-sized sandflies, this is indeed a most pleasant area in which to excavate.

The site, an Archaic one, probably covered several acres originally, but considerable river erosion over the past few years has carried away much of the site. Continuing erosion threatened the rest of the site, so main excavations were carried out during 1963 and 1964.

The occupation layer varied from 10 to 24 inches thick and was composed mainly of intensely black charcoally sand, while towards the bottom of the occupation layer occurred hundreds of granite stones which had been carried from the river to serve as oven stones. Three caches of adzes were excavated from beneath this oven stone layer and many oven pits were excavated and plotted in the clean granite sand beneath the oven stones. The most interesting structures excavated at the Heaphy were three stone pavements composed of flattish slabs of granite and limestone. These pavements were of no great size; the largest being approximately nine feet across. As these occurred in an area obviously used as a workshop area, their significance remained obscure until four days of continuous West Coast rain led to the conviction that the pavements were intended to keep the Archaic craftsmen and their equipment out of the granite slush. Carbon dating for the site stands at 1518 A.D. plus or minus 70 years, and this date together with the site's closer proximity to the West Coast sources of greenstone, accounts for the relatively high incidence of greenstone artifacts excavated on this Archaic site. Lure shanks were manufactured on the site and if they were used there, which is most likely, one can only admire the skill of the Archaic Maoris in guiding their canoes through the West Coast breakers. Anomolpteryx and Emeus crassus are the moas represented in the midden material from this site.