More Bits and Bobs of Interest

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Kia ora,

As a follow up to my recent posts about the recent New Zealand Archaeological Association conference in Blenheim and the Wairau Bar archaeological site, I have found a piece on the Radio New Zealand website about the conference and the history of the site. There is a wee bit of footage from the conference fieldtrip to Wairau Bar and radio interviews with representatives of Rangitāne O Wairau, the local tangata whenua, as well as some of the researchers that have been involved in the recent study of the site.

I've also found a couple of other 'bits and bobs of interest' discussing recent archaeological research around Oceania.

In one study, appearing in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, and reported by Live Science, researchers from the Australian Museum, University of Sydney, and the University of Auckland employed a methodology known as experimental archaeology in order to test ideas about how ca. 3000 year old flaked stone tools excavated at sites in the Solomon Islands had been used. Experimental archaeology is where researchers try and recreate aspects of the archaeological record (in this example the distinctive type of damage that has been found to occur on the edges of the stone tools). After using replicas of the tools as tattooing implements the researchers found that the resulting edge damage (or 'use-wear') was similar to that on the archaeological specimens when examined using a high-powered microscope. They therefore concluded that the archaeological specimens were likely used for a similar purpose.

Tattooing is an important part of many Pacific cultures, including that of the New Zealand Māori. Source image here.



In the other study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and reported by ABC News in Australia, researchers geochemically 'fingerprinted' stone artefacts previously excavated from a well-dated site in the Cook Islands. The results indicate the existence of an extensive inter-archipelago exchange network, possibly lasting centuries (ca. 1300 AD to the 1600s), with the artefacts (or at least the raw materials used to manufacture them) coming from as far as the Marquesas Islands, more than 2,400 km away.


Thanks for reading,
Nick

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