Summer 2024

The InSitu Heritage team returned to work after the Christmas/New Year break, and straight into an investigation at Thornton during monitoring of flood protection works on the Rangitāiki River. This site is a continuation of features previously investigated in 2019 (W15/356) and is just to the east of the Thornton site (W15/121) that was investigated by Wilfred Shawcross in 1964. The work completed in January 2024, under HNZPT Authority no. 2021/111 & 2022/299, revealed a deep, complex occupation sequence on the stabilised dune surface. We were all particularly excited to see clear evidence of puke (circular kūmara growing mounds) during the excavations (Image below).

The New Year has also brought two new team members! Eliza Thompson has joined us, based in Whakatāne, and Maggie McGrath has come on board, based in Whangārei. Eliza’s first few weeks in the North Island have been busy with fieldwork around the Bay of Plenty, surveying large pit and terrace sites at Pikowai, west of Whakatāne, and visiting the local archaeological highlights at the Pāpāmoa Hills Regional Park, Mauao Historic Reserve, Tauwhare Pā and the Onekawa Te Mawhai Regional Park. Eliza and Josie have most recently been seen heading east toward Mohaka, south of Wairoa on the east coast, for early stages of survey work for the Transport Rebuild East Coast project. Maggie has largely been confined to the office doing desk-based work for the Transport Rebuild project, but we do plan to let her outside occasionally to soak up some vitamin D and enjoy the amazing archaeological landscape we are all privileged to work in.