The Sharpest Tool in the Shed: A Morphological, Typological and Geochemical Analysis of Stone Adzes from the Auckland (Tamaki) Region, New Zealand

Abstract

Over the course of around five centuries, pre-European New Zealand society underwent a considerable amount of change in a relatively short period of time. From initial colonisation somewhere around 1200 A.D. to the arrival of Captain Cook in 1769, it is argued that the country witnessed increasing conflict and competition for resources, changes in subsistence and settlement patterns, changes in material culture (i.e. adzes and fishhooks), and shifts and contractions in communication networks. These changes are typically signalled by the extinction of Moa and the decline of large game hunting, increased population and the appearance of fortified Pa, and changes in agricultural practices. It has been argued that changes in adze manufacture and technology occurred amidst these other, far reaching changes in subsistence and settlement patterns. While there is a general model of change within New Zealand, relatively little is still known about most regional rates of change. The aim of this research is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of stone adzes from around the Auckland (Tamaki) region in the context of the wider New Zealand model of change which has developed over some years and presented in published literature. This analysis was completed using an assemblage of 144 artefacts from eleven different sites with good context and dating information from the Auckland region. The assemblage was divided into four temporal periods spanning the pre-European Maori sequence based on radiocarbon dates. The analysis was completed in three parts; a size and morphology analysis, a typological analysis using the formal Duff/Skinner adze typology, and Turner’s (2000) Use-Life State typology, and a geochemical source analysis. While superficially the results of this analysis may fit the existing model of change in New Zealand, the timing and rates and of change within this general trend are far more variable than the model might suggest.