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Ngā Tohuwhenua Mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archeology in Aerial Photographs

Stone rows delineating garden boundaries near Okoropunga, on the Wairarapa east coast

Stone rows delineating garden boundaries near Okoropunga, on the Wairarapa east coast

Stone rows delineating garden boundaries near Okoropunga, on the Wairarapa east coast

The individual patches are 10 to 30 m across and 150 m from the foot of the steep slope to the sea. This view is taken looking to the south-west. The appearance of rows running parallel to the beach, further dividing the gardens into rectangular plots, is somewhat misleading. The lines parallel to the beach are ridges of stones thrown up by Storms at the back of former beaches. Over thousands of years, these beaches have been lifted by earthquakes out of the reach of wave-action. The main stone row boundaries have been constructed at right angles over the line of the beach ridges, although some of the ridges themselves may have been enhanced and also served to mark the boundaries of gardens. Some of the stones in the garden rows were taken from the depressions (borrow-pits) which show along the top edge of the principal beach ridge. Throughout the Wairarapa, the original topsoils that existed in these areas have been removed by fierce squally winds, thus causing the abandonment of the gardens. In their original form the gardens would have been fringed with coastal forest and protected from wind.