History
The site was discovered in 1939 by then schoolboy Jim Eyles who, in 1942, found more artefacts. Early investigations with Roger Duff unearthed a burial site. Bones were scattered and close to the surface. This was originally believed to have been due to ploughing, but work by Bruce McFadgen shows that at some stage, probably between the two periods of occupation, the site was subject to either large storm surge waves or a tsunami which probably contributed to the scattering. Using the techniques of the time about 2000 artefacts and 44 human skeletons were removed and examined in detail. The record seems to show that the partial skeletons of several children were found in shallow graves but these were in such poor condition and scattered that Duff was either unable or unwilling to keep the fragments using the methods of those days. The examination showed that the people were using the same cultural methods as those in eastern Polynesia, particularly the Marquesas Islands.69 adzes were found at Wairau Bar with only 3 being made of greenstone. 80 small, one piece,triangular, stone or bone fishing lures with lashed unbarbed hook were found.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)