Adapting Polynesian Adze Technology to New Raw Material at Tiwai Point, Murihiku, New Zealand

ABSTRACT

The Tiwai Point site in Bluff Harbour, Murihiku (Southland) was occupied early in the first century of New Zealand settlement (∼1300 AD). The site was the largest production center of Bluff argillite adzes that supplied settlements up to 500 km distant. This tough recrystalized mudstone was obtained from sources throughout Bluff Harbour and it presented new opportunities and challenges to pioneering Polynesian adze makers. Although suitable for producing Polynesian adze forms, it is tougher than tropical Polynesian basalts and required the development of novel manufacturing techniques. To understand these technological innovations, we produced 155 3D models of Bluff argillite adzes, preforms and blanks from the 1968 Tiwai Point excavation to model adze manufacture using various forms of the raw material. We found a heavy reliance on hammer-dressing as a practical means of working an unusually tough material with variable grain-size anda high potential risk of breakage.

KEYWORDS:

• Polynesian adze technology
• technological adaptation
• New Zealand
• Murihiku
• Bluff argillite

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Te Ao Marama for welcoming us to Murihiku and for their continuing involvement and support for this project. David Dudfield facilitated access to the Tiwai Point assemblage housed in the Southland Museum and Art Gallery. Jennings would like to thank Robin and Allen Braithwaite for accommodating him in Invercargill during data collection. We would also like to thank Heather Sadler (University of Otago) for organizing the Laser Scanner for use at the museum. Andy Brown, Sean P. Connaughton, Ceri Shipton and Richard Walter provided helpful advice and comments on earlier drafts of the paper. We would like to thank Dante Bonica for his insights on the practicalities of working Bluff argillite and Stuart Park for providing valuable information on the original 1968 excavation of Tiwai Point. This research was funded in part by a University of Queensland Research Scholarship to Jennings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Christopher Jennings is a New Zealand-based archaeologist, with experience working in both research and consulting in NewZealand, Australia and the Pacific. Christopher's main areas of expertise are lithic analysis, GIS and archaeological field work, with extensive experience in excavation, survey and site mapping. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and working as a senior archaeologist for Southern Pacific Archaeological Research at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Prof. Marshall I. Weisler (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) has worked in the Pacific Islands for more than 40 years addressing a wide range of questions in archaeology and prehistory including human colonization and abandonment of islands, human impacts to pristine insular landscapes, marine subsistence, documenting interaction through the geochemical analysis of stone tools, U-series dating, and stone adze manufacture. He has published nearly 150 internationally referred journal articles, book chapters, and monographs. He has raised more than $6.6 m in grant funding and is an elected member of the Australian Academy of Humanities, the Linnean Society of London, and the Society for Antiquaries, London.

Notes

1 Hammer-dressing is a technique using hammer stones to flatten “lumps” and flake scar ridges on adze blanks and preforms.

2 The term “pipi” is the Māori name for Paphies australis, a common bivalve shellfish. Witter coined this term due to their similar shape.

3 Unidirectional flaking of sides in conjunction with bifacial flaking of the front or back surface is referred to as bilateral trimming by Leach (1984; Leach & Leach, 1980).

4 Referred to as trilateral trimming by Leach (1984; Leach & Leach, 1980), or trihedral flaking by Shipton et al. (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Queensland [grant number University of Queensland Research Scholarship].