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

Coromandel region

page 112

Coromandel region

The Coromandel Peninsula comprises a range of hills of ancient, partly volcanic origin. Some of the rocks have substantial mineral values. 3 The soils are poor even where they are not excessively hilly and the streams are not navigable, so pre-European Māori settlement was largely confined to a narrow coastal margin. The peninsula has nevertheless been very important in the history of New Zealand archaeology. 4 In the 1950s it was the location of Jack Golson's excavations at Sarah's Gully, from which he described an example of early North Island Polynesian horticulturalists. 5 Prior to this time, only the earliest South Island archaeological sites had been described, and there was no horticultural evidence. These early sites, occupying sheltered coves on the northeastern tip of the Kuaotunu Peninsula, are not visually impressive from the air, with few surface archaeological features. Views of the peninsula and Sarah's Gully featured in a discussion of vertical and oblique aerial photographs in chapter 1.

A prominent feature of the peninsula landscape is Mt Tahanga, one of the most important sources of stone for making adzes in pre-European New Zealand. Adzes made in this stone are often of the earlier types, not dissimilar to the patterns of adze made at Wairau Bar and in East Polynesia at the same time. The stone was used from the earliest periods and traded throughout the northern and eastern North Island in large quantities. 6

The visually conspicuous Coromandel Peninsula sites date mostly from a later age, from the period immediately before or contemporaneous with European arrival, and are principally coastal headland pā—for example, Wharetaewa in Mercury Bay. In 1769 Cook noted the importance of fishing and the quantity of fernroot eaten, and drew attention to the low population numbers and relative lack of horticulture and inland settlement. This
Mt Tahanga, a volcanic dome and site of early Maori quarrying for adze stone

Mt Tahanga, a volcanic dome and site of early Maori quarrying for adze stone

Stone at the summit has been quarried, with floors of flaked stone in many places around it, although they do not show in this photograph because of the scrub cover. The summit may have been a pā since it appears to have been defended by a low stone wall or stone-faced scarp, visible in this photograph taken from the north-west.

page 113 is not unexpected for an area which overall has a physical geography (mountainous and with generally poor soils) so unsuited to human settlement. On the headland pā, for example, storage pits are not as frequent or prominent as they are elsewhere in the northern half of the North Island. The early sites, however, such as Sarah's Gully, did have layers with storage pits, although relatively few of them. The site lies at the entrance to the gully, not far from the high water mark, where there would have been a number of localised patches of sandy soils well suited to Māori horticultural practice.