Sources of New Zealand's east Polynesian culture revisited : The radiocarbon chronology of the Tairua archaeological site, New Zealand

Abstract

The origins of Archaic (early) New Zealand culture in East Polynesia have been debated in Pacific prehistory for many years (Duff 1956, Golson 1959, Lockerbie 1959, Green 1966 & 1967, Davidson 1984, Sutton 1994). One piece of evidence used in determining these origins is a pearlshell lure shank, possibly of tropical East Polynesian origin, discovered at the Tairua archaeological site, New Zealand, in 1964 (Green 1967). Identifying the precise age of the deposit in which this artefact was found has been hampered by problems in effectively radiocarbon dating the site. In this paper we present new radiocarbon evidence from the Tairua site to derive the time of deposition of this lure shank, and so provide a minimum possible age for the artefact. Establishing the date of the artefact's deposition might shed further light on the East Polynesian origins of early New Zealanders.

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