A fourteenth-century house from the Rakaia River Mouth, Canterbury, New Zealand

Abstract

Abstract Large-scale areal excavations at the Rakaia River Mouth moa-hunting site exposed an array of post holes indicative of a substantial building. Also found were the remains of a possible cooking shelter and oven, several fire scoops, and early type artefacts, all contained within a fenced enclosure. Radiocarbon dates provide a fourteenth-century age estimate. The structural features provide important new insights into the nature of intra-site spatial patterning and of house society both in early New Zealand and a wider Pacific context. Keywords: Radiocarbon dates, house, Maori, moa hunting, Archaic, artefacts, post holes. Introduction Archaeological information about buildings and their relationships to other features is important, not just for what it can tell us about the architecture of the time and a community's use of space, but for what it can tell us about such things as social organisation and ideology. Gaining access to the relevant information, however, requires extensive areal excavations that are costly and rarely carried out in New Zealand. Those few relatively large-scale areal excavations that have been undertaken at Archaic sites, such as Shag River Mouth, Heaphy River Mouth and Houhora, have not yielded much useful information about structures. The currently available data are therefore insufficient to provide detailed information on intra-site spatial patterning in the early settlement phase of prehistoric New Zealand except at a very general level. All of these sites had post holes, and evidence of activity areas where such things as cooking or tool manufacture were undertaken. However, the areas excavated did not provide the opportunity to examine the layout or construction of particular buildings, especially houses, or the spatial relationships between structures, activity areas and open spaces. The basic residential unit of any community is the household cluster (Flannery 1976) of which the dominant component is the residential structure or house. In Polynesian society the house is more than simply a residence, however. It is integral to the relationships of individuals to their kin, their ancestors and their deities. This is especially so in the case of the important (e.g. chiefs') houses, which are focal points for each settlement or village. Recent studies have shown striking commonality of theme, structure and use of space throughout the Austronesian-speaking world (e.g. Fox 1993a, Kirch and Green 2001). Houses are given special significance in Austronesian societies, where they provide a physical link with the past and are often the focus of ritual and performance. The aspects of houses that are shared across these societies suggest a considerable time-depth to this house culture. While some progress has been made on houses and intrasite settlement pattern in East Polynesia (e.g. Walter 1993, 1998), archaeological evidence of the houses and other buildings of the early, Archaic, phase of settlement in New Zealand has so far proved elusive. It is limited to inferred evidence for simple, round huts at several sites (Allingham n.d., Anderson 1986), a square structure from the early fourteenth century AD Wairau Bar site (Anderson 1989) and a rectangular dwelling house from the Moikau Valley in Palliser Bay currently dated to the twelfth century AD, but see discussion below (Prickett 1979). Excavations over 300 [m.sup.2] at the Rakaia River Mouth site (L37/4) in the South Island of New Zealand revealed evidence for a unique set of features including a large, rectangular structure with its posts set deep into the ground. Radiocarbon dates, material culture and faunal remains all indicate an occupation near the beginning of Polynesian settlement in New Zealand. The results of the excavations contribute to a wider understanding of Archaic settlement and life in a new land, and enable comparisons both regionally and chronologically in a Polynesian context. …