From Rapa to Ahuahu: Exploring Nature’s Archive
Environmental archeologist Dr Matiu Prebble
University of Canterbury (UC) environmental archaeologist Dr Matiu Prebble is fascinated by island ecosystems and what they can reveal about human history and patterns of settlement. His extensive fieldwork has taken him across the Pacific, from the southernmost reaches of French Polynesia to the off-shore islands of Aotearoa.
THINK ARCHAEOLOGY AND YOU MAY PICTURE A dig site like something out of Time Team, but sampling sediments in swamps and ponds is more the norm for the intrepid academic I am meeting on campus for today’s interview. At UC’s new Beatrice Tinsley building, Matiu quickly dispels the notion that his job must nevertheless be dominated by adventure in wild places. It turns out there’s way more lab work than fieldwork.
Serendipity, coupled with curiosity, has shaped his long career in environmental archaeology. Matiu has travelled extensively to study centuries-old Polynesian sites and has even had the rare honour of an extinct bark beetle being named after him (in acknowledgement of fieldwork in southern French Polynesia). ‘I’m just really curious and interested and by chance that became relevant and I found a good career path to go down.’
That path has led to Matiu taking part in radiocarbon dating research (led by Dr Janet Wilmshurst at Landcare Research) on ancient seeds and other natural materials that have helped pinpoint when people first arrived in this county and throughout the eastern Pacific and East Polynesian archipelagos. As they made landfall, so too did the Pacific rat. Radiocarbon dating of woody seed cases chewed by the rats show that our part of the world and all its scattered little islands were settled fairly rapidly and at much the same time, some 800 to 900 years ago.
Of keen interest to Matiu is figuring out what life was like for the new arrivals. How did people learn to survive – what did they eat and how did they collect or grow their food? Islands are apparently a good place to start when trying to answer these sorts of questions.
‘It’s a small landscape that often hasn’t been heavily ploughed, so there are different fossils preserved in small lakes and swamps that help shed a light on past ecosystems in those places,’ says Matiu. ‘What I like about islands too, especially if you have an historical photo archive, is you always know where you are. You can fairly easily look at a photo and match it with existing landmarks to get a feel for how the landscape has changed.
‘In the Māori context, islands were often occupied as they offered a lot of protection – they were defendable – and tended to have a more regular climate with fewer frosts and hence better crop protection. As well, these islands are like microcosms for what was happening across Aotearoa.’
With family roots back to the days of early European settlement in Canterbury on his father’s side and with links to Ngāi Tahu (Banks Peninsula – Little River/Wairewa) on his mother’s side, Matiu has a deep connection to this region. In many ways, growing up immersed in family history must have helped guide his future course in life. ‘My father, Barrie, was very interested in history,’ he says. ‘We were one of the founding families in Christchurch: my grandfather was a
record keeper for the family and he collected various photos and papers that I now hold.’
Through his high school years, Matiu began to connect more deeply with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and his wider whānau on that side. As a student at Victoria University of Wellington, he focused on Māori Studies and Geological Sciences, where he first began learning various techniques with applications in archaeology. After graduation, he worked for the Department of Conservation for a few years before moving to the consultancy Aukaha and then Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in their heritage unit. ‘I ended up working on a bunch of archaeological digs in the late 1990s and stayed on marae around the South Island. Through that I met Atholl Anderson who was a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. With his encouragement, I applied for two postgraduate scholarships there and was successful; I ended doing most of my PhD research in the remote southern islands of French Polynesia.’
Much of Matiu’s PhD fieldwork was conducted on the island of Rapa, famous for its large, stone wall-faced pā sites. ‘My main interest was looking at agricultural production systems. Taro was grown there as their main crop in big terraced gardens. We didn’t know a great deal about how they were constructed or when. It was a great opportunity to be able to go there and try and build an understanding of how people were modifying these places so as to live in what is quite a harsh environment.’
Last year, Matiu was awarded three-year funding from Te Pūtea Rangahau a Marsden, the Marsden Fund, to investigate the mahinga kai practices of Māori settlers on islands off the coast of New Zealand. The Māori-led research team has a strong mana whenua focus and will be employing rangatahi to assist with gathering data on sub-tropical and sub-Antarctic islands. The team will be looking for evidence of landscapes having been modified for agriculture, as well as evidence of trading relationships.
A model site has been established on Ahuahu Island, off the Coromandel Peninsula, a place that Matiu describes as ‘a treasure trove’ for Aotearoa heritage. ‘We first started working there in 2014/15 and have good relationships with mana whenua along with other archaeologists working on
The first arrivals came to temperate Aoteaora with a tropical template. ‘Very little is known about how they adapted their agricultural systems.’
the island. It is an unbelievable place: replete with so much archaeology. There are some very early occupation sites on beaches there. We want to find out what was happening in other parts of the landscape when people were occupying these beach localities. In later times, people were occupying pā sites on the island’s promontories. What were their garden production systems? What were they cultivating? There is a lot to investigate in 16 square kilometres.’
As Matiu observes, the first arrivals came to temperate Aoteaora with a tropical template. ‘Very little is known about how they adapted their agricultural systems. Our focus will be on swamps and lakes, looking for traces of agricultural crop plants.’
The team also plans to conduct fieldwork on Moturua Island in the Bay of Islands, where the Arakite Charitable Trust has been leading some exciting excavations in recent years. It is one of New Zealand’s oldest known Polynesian settlement sites. ‘It is another incredibly important location. The interactions with early Pākehā history are so fascinating too: the French under [Marion] du Fresne established a temporary settlement there and planted a European garden.’
Studying how the island’s ecology changed through time will help build a sequence of what happened when and how the land was occupied. He observes that even the presence of particular weeds can prove significant; weeds associated with the arrival of Europeans can be found throughout the Pacific region.
Foveaux Strait, where some of the earliest involvements of Māori in the European economy took place, will be another area of interest, and in 2022 the research focus will turn to the Auckland Islands where there is a 650-year-old archaeological site. ‘We’ll be going down on a Navy ship with the Department of Conservation.’
Assisting the project is ETH, Switzerland’s largest research institute that is bringing specialist expertise to bear on sedimentary analysis for plant identification. ‘We hope our findings will help support the huge resurgent interest in the Māori community about traditional food gathering techniques and affirm how this is part of Māori culture in a really deep way.’
Matiu has only been based at UC for little more than a year but is already busy with other local projects, alongside the Marsden Fund research. One of these projects has involved studying buried native forest tree stumps in Hoon Hay Valley and Halswell that the Christchurch City Council uncovered last year while carrying out flood mitigation works.
‘We went out just prior to lockdown to examine them and I got undergraduate students involved in looking at various aspects. Hoon Hay was once part of the Prebble pastoral run but thankfully no evidence was found for the trees having been chopped down by my ancestors! Similarly we found no evidence of Māori land clearance before European arrival. There is robust evidence that the trees were in fact destroyed
by the shifting of the Waimakariri River some 2,500 years ago and the area then turned into a not insubstantial lake.’ Knowledge gained is now informing the council’s restoration programmes. Research is ongoing as to what caused the ancient inundation.
Matiu is also involved in research with Ngāi Tahu at Whakaraupō/Lyttelton Harbour and Ihutai/Avon-Heathcote Estuary, and elsewhere on Horomaka/Banks Peninsula to try and gain a clear understanding of the past natural environment as it was before 1848, as a way to inform Treaty settlement matters.
In reflecting on his career, Matiu observes that research is never done in isolation and is always a collaborative process. ‘I do wish to strongly acknowledge all those who have supported me and worked alongside me on various research projects. Many people have been a part of this journey.’
When not working as an environmental archaeologist, Matiu is often in training for ultra-marathons. He ran the Old Ghost Ultra over summer (described by organisers as ‘the ultimate test in backcountry running’). Having inherited a great variety of fruit trees from his father in Tai Tapu, he also enjoys getting out on the land and growing crops of his own. ‘My main aim is to help supply my rūnanga with kai. I’ve also had Asian families picking the loquats and members of the Muslim community coming out to pick fruit for chutney.’
Around the time we go to print, Matiu will be running a rūnanga for both kaumātua and rangatira to look at research protocols for the Marsden Fund project. ‘We hope it will also generate discussion about what they want us to tackle, as this is fully collaborative research.’
Matiu observes that research is never done in isolation and is always a collaborative process.