Expressway revelations
A WOMAN’S skeleton dating back to the 1800s and 200-year-old ‘‘industrial shellfish factory floors’’ have been unearthed along the Kapiti Expressway route.
Te Ati Awa and Ngati Mutunga representative Danny Mullen has been working on the consenting process since 2008 and said artefacts found along the route had revealed another chapter of the Kapiti Coast’s history.
About nine months ago a koiwi, the skeleton of a woman, was found south of Waikanae River, believed to date from the 19th century.
‘‘We missed her by about a metre during exploratory investigations. We will find more,’’ Mullen said.
Local iwi reinterred the skeleton at an urupa.
Mullen believed some artefacts dated back to pre-Ati Awa habitation, when the Waitaha tribe lived in the area.
About a dozen hangi pits discovered north of the Waikanae River were built of large rocks believed to have been brought in by canoe across former wetlands.
He recently found a musket flint on sand dunes in Waikanae. Muskets were used during the Kuititanga Battle in the late 1830s.
Large totara logs discovered in peat digouts had been given to iwi for carving and other purposes.
He was hoping an illustrated book would be written on the finds for schools. ‘‘The stories are written in the middens,’’ he said.
Archaeologist Mary O’Keeffe has been working on the project since September last year and was surprised more skeletons had not been found.
Unlike other areas around the country, there was no evidence of sites on the ground, O’Keeffe said, ‘‘due to the dynamic shifting sand’’.
So far she had investigated about 140 new sites including middens between 40 and 60 square metres, 3m below the topsoil, between 100 and 200 years old, north of the Waikanae River, and bigger than she expected.
‘‘They are like big industrial factory floors where people went to the coast, collected huge amounts of shell, travelled inland a bit and processed the meat to be carried somewhere else.
‘‘It feels like the fish aisle of the supermarket. This is new information for the Kapiti Coast. Ironically, it is one of the great outcomes of the expressway, which is on one hand a destructive process but also yielding unique scientific information.
‘‘It is career highlight stuff for me. An enormous resource of kaimoana and shellfish was possibly traded out. This is ground-breaking stuff,’’ she said.
Findings suggested people were more reliant on wetland resources – flax, eels and birds – than the marine environment.
Half a dozen artefacts had been collected, including obsidian tools, made of volcanic glass from Mayor Island and Taupo, an argillite adze from Nelson/Marlborough, and a hollowed-out piece of pumice, used to transport hot coals.
One unusual find in a midden was a small tuatara jawbone. Tuatara tended not to be eaten, as they were culturally significant.
Mullen and O’Keeffe said Goodman contractors had also been excited by the finds.
New Zealand Transport Agency Wellington highways manager Rod James said the expressway passed through 1.8 kilometres of land undeveloped for the past 50 years.
‘‘This is an exciting opportunity to learn more about the area’s rich history and preserve significant findings for current and future generations,’’ James said.
Artefacts are taken to Otago University for analysis, cataloguing and photographing and registered with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage before being returned to iwi.