Several categories of site are recognised by archaeologists. They may occur either separately or together; close proximity, however, does not necessarily indicate an association in the past, for each site may have been used at a different time.

Pa “fortified villages” are usually built in places already well provided with natural defences: on hilltops, cliff edges and headlands, oxbow river bends, etc., with defensive earthworks (ditches and/or banks) across any accessible entrance. Wooden palisades usually surmounted the earthworks, but are now represented only by post holes and occasional pieces of charred or rotted wood. The area inside the defences is usually terraced, and often contains pits, working floors, ovens, and middens (though these can also occur separately).

Pits vary greatly in shape and size, but the majority are rectangular and between 5 and 20 ft long. Some were used for storage, while others appear to have been house sites, but the exact function of the majority is still a subject of controversy.

Working floors are areas where the Maori manufactured tools and ornaments of stone, bone, or wood. Worked flakes of these materials, together with finished and broken artefacts, may occur in great abundance.

Middens–“refuse heaps” of shells and/or bones are common indicators of Maori occupation, especially in coastal sandhills.

Ovens, or hangi, are usually a few feet in diameter, containing shell or bone, together with charcoal and burnt oven stones.

Terraced habitation sites occur widely throughout New Zealand. Some are heavily fortified, while in others the terrace scarps provide the only protection. Agricultural terraces are also widespread. They vary considerably in size, but are usually more extensive and less regular than habitation terraces, and are often marked by the presence of a man-made gravel layer in the soil.

Caves, or rock shelters, often contain abundant evidence of habitation (middens, ovens, artefacts), of burials, and of artistic activity (rock paintings and carvings). Many rock shelters containing Maori art occur in South Canterbury. The drawings, executed in black, red, or yellow (or a combination of these), are stylised representations of men, animals, and everyday objects (spears, canoes, etc.). No reliable traditions concerning the drawings have been recorded; our understanding of them will depend on their artistic analysis, and on archaeological excavations of the shelters.

Quarries, the source of stone artefacts, occur only where the rock has desirable working qualities. Roughly shaped artefacts, flakes, and stone “anvils” and “hammers” may still be present.

Stone structures–walls, rows, and heaps–were usually formed when land was cleared for agriculture. Stones were also occasionally used in pa defences.

Swamps seem to have been used as storage places for precious wood carvings, either to cure and season them or to hide them in time of war.

Archaeological evidence of the first Polynesians to arrive in New Zealand is very meagre, but most authorities agree that they landed some time between A.D. 500 and 1000 (some believe they arrived even before A.D. 500). As to their origin, the study of adze types strongly suggests the Society Group of islands as the Hawaiki (or homeland) of the New Zealand Maori, and South-east Asia as the original home of the Polynesians. (This theory is supported by traditional evidence and by language similarities.)

These first New Zealanders are called moa-hunters by archaeologists because of their association with this bird. (The term “Archaic” is used in some accounts.) They hunted the moa for food and used its bones to make some of their tools and ornaments. Moa eggshells were placed in ceremonial burials. These people were apparently peaceful, for no weapons belonging to them have yet been found. Most sites of the moa-hunter period so far discovered are situated on the coast, usually near a river mouth. Such sites occur at Opito (Coromandel), Waingongoro (South Taranaki), Paremata (Wellington), Wairau Bar and Kaikoura (Marlborough), Hurunui, Redcliffs, and Rakaia (Canterbury), Waitaki, Awamoa, Shag River, Murdering Beach, Pounawea, and Papatowai (Otago), and on Stewart Island. Some inland sites are also known (e.g., Hawkesburn, in Central Otago). Although concentrated along the east coast of the South Island, moa-hunter sites are more widespread than is generally realised; the above is not a complete list and more sites are being discovered and investigated each year.

With the virtual extinction of the moa about A.D. 1500, the moa hunter camps were abandoned, the occupants apparently turning to a fishing economy (judging from the increase in fish and shellfish remains found in their middens, or refuse heaps). This period, provisionally termed “Intermediate”, is complex and little understood. In some localities moa-hunter artefacts occur with moa bones; in others the artefacts are of moa-hunter type, but moa bones are absent, or there is a distinct break between typical moa-hunter and classic Maori occupations.

The classic Maori culture was that encountered by the early explorers and the first settlers. From the archaeologist's point of view it is characterised by large earthwork fortifications (pa), by tools and ornaments differing from those of the moa-hunters, and by the development of wood carving. All these cultures (moa hunter, “Intermediate”, and Classic Maori) are, however, generally considered to belong to the one people, the Maori.

The first Europeans to arrive in New Zealand have left their mark in the archaeological record; trading beads, crockery, mirrors, nails, and pieces of iron turn up quite often in late Maori occupation layers. The period of late intertribal and Maori-European warfare is also of interest to archaeologists; “gunfighting pa” occur in several areas, e.g., Te Kooti's Te Porere pa (National Park). It is here that archaeology and history meet.

Archaeology is the study of earlier peoples through the cultural materials (artefacts) and other signs of habitation they have left behind them. It is a relatively new science in New Zealand, having evolved from the activities of historians, museum anthropologists, students of Maori lore, and private “fossickers” and collectors of artefacts. The museums in the main centres were the first to conduct extensive archaeological investigations, followed later by the departments of anthropology in the Auckland and Otago Universities. The few professional archaeologists in New Zealand today are employed by these institutions. In 1955 the Archaeological Association of New Zealand was formed, with the aims of coordinating archaeological research in New Zealand, keeping members informed of progress in other areas, and promoting public interest and understanding.

Early theories of New Zealand's pre-history owed as much to the study of Maori tradition as they did to archaeological techniques. Interest arose in the mid-nineteenth century by the discovery of moa bones in association with human remains. Many sites were investigated (rather haphazardly from the modern point of view) and several theories of the association of moa and man put forward. Sir Julius von Haast believed that the moas were exterminated by a race of people whom he called the “Moa-hunters” and who long preceded the Maori. His opponents held that the moa hunters were identical with the Maori, and that their remains did not predate the arrival of the Great Fleet of 1350 (this date being derived solely from traditional evidence). Early in this century Elsdon Best and S. Percy Smith suggested that the moa hunters were of Melanesian origin, but this theory was discredited in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Arahura River, 35 miles in length, rises in the Southern Alps at Browning Pass and flows west, then north, then west again to reach the Westland lowland just north of Lake Kaniere, whence it flows north-west to the sea, 5 miles north of Hokitika. Major tributaries in the mountains are Harman River, Newton Creek, Olderog Creek, and Wainihinihi River and, near the coast, Kaiwaka Creek. In common with the larger Westland rivers it has been glaciated during the Pleistocene age, and moraines and associated glacial landforms extend on to the coastal lowlands. An overflow of the Arahura Glacier extended down the Styx River from the upper valley via Styx Saddle. The lower reaches of the Arahura Valley, particularly from Humphreys Gully to the sea, have been extensively sluiced and later dredged for gold. This area was a major producer in the past, but is now worked out.

This valley appears to have been the major source of greenstone (nephrite) formerly recovered from gravels during gold-working operations, but now confined to the river bed between Milltown and the lower reaches of Olderog Creek. This area contains the only known reserves of greenstone.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century a route up the Styx River and upper Arahura Valley, over Browning Pass (4,750 ft) to Canterbury via the Wilberforce River, was much used by prospectors, and the first sheep in Westland were driven over it. The formed track is still open over much of the route.

Some authorities consider that the name Arahura was given by Ngahue, the companion of Kupe, the navigator. It is said to be properly Ara'ura, which is the ancient name of Aitutaki , a legendary homeland of the Maoris.

by Alan Copland Beck, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Christchurch.

(Alcithoe arabica).

This handsome shellfish lives, half buried in sand, from low water to a considerable depth. The shell, easily recognised by the spiral twists on the pillar, grows up to 6 in. in height, and it is variously marked in patterns of reddish-brown bands and zigzag markings. The Maori name is pupu rore.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

One of the main rivers of Southland, it rises in the Takitimu mountains and flows southward for some 65 miles to enter Foveaux Strait at Riverton. As a shore whaling station in the 1830s it was known as “Jacob's River”, subsequently Riverton. The catchment area is some 344 sq. miles, and a representative discharge measured at Otautau Bridge on 9 June 1954 was 1,120 cusecs. Floods have occurred periodically and in 1913 a flow of 35,000 cusecs was measured at Wreys Bush bridge. For the most part the river flows through good farm land on the Southland Plains, with clear pools on a gravelly bed. It is popular with fishermen and, in summer, with campers and picnickers. The wide estuary at its mouth at Riverton affords shelter for a small fishing fleet and is the scene of boating and swimming activities in summer.

The origin of the name is uncertain. Some think it was named after a chieftainess, others after Apolima, an island in the Pacific. A more literal translation gives “company of five” or “a band of five workmen”.

by Bryce Leslie Wood, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Dunedin.

Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand, though it seems at first to have been used for the North Island only. Many meanings have been given for the name but with Maori names the true meaning can often be found only in a mythological story or in historical fiction illustrating either how the name was given or something of the ideas which prompted it. Aotearoa is made up of either two or three words, Aotea and roa or Ao tea and roa. Aotea could be the name of one of the canoes of the great migration, the great magellan cloud near the bright star Canopus in summer, a bird or even food; ao is a cloud, dawn, daytime, or world; tea white or clear, perhaps bright, while roa means long or tall.

The most popular and authoritative meaning usually given is “long white cloud”, and there are two stories current to illustrate this. It seems the voyagers to New Zealand were guided during the day by a long white cloud and at night by a long bright cloud. The more usual one tells how, when Kupe was nearing land after his long voyage, the first sign of land was the peculiar cloud hanging over it. Kupe drew attention to it and said “Surely is a point of land”. His wife, Hine-te-aparangi, called out “He ao! He ao!” (a cloud! a cloud!) Later Kupe decided to call the land after his wife's greeting to it, and the cloud which welcomed them. The name Aotea was given both to the Great Barrier and to the North Island, but the latter became Aotearoa, presumably because of its length.

According to certain authorities, the other meanings are: big glaring light (Hochstetter); continuously clear light, or land of abiding day (Stowell); long white world (Wilson); long bright world, long daylight, long lingering day, or long bright land (Cowan); and long bright day (Tregear). A good case could probably be made out for the land of abiding day, or similar names. Maui, who is closely connected with New Zealand in mythology, once snared the sun and beat him to make him travel more slowly across the sky. Perhaps Maui achieved the same end when he sailed south to fish up New Zealand where there is longer day with long twilight, particularly in the south.

by James Oakley Wilson, D.S.C., M.COM., A.L.A., Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.

The term “Anzac” is the abbreviation of the “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps” and was first adopted by Field-Marshal W. R. Birdwood when he took command of this Corps in Egypt late in 1914. The Australian and New Zealand forces landed at Anzac Beach, Gallipoli, on 25 April 1915, while at the same time a large combined British and French force landed in the Cape Helles area. The allied casualties in this heroic but disastrous campaign were 33,532 killed, 78,518 wounded, and 7,689 missing, of which 2,721 New Zealanders were killed and 4,752 wounded. This campaign became a symbol of New Zealand's war losses, and the observance of 25 April to commemorate its fallen has been widened to include all who have given their lives in battle from the South African War to the present.

The day was first observed on 25 April 1916 by a memorial service and in the following year on 23 April, as there were municipal elections on the 25th. From 1918 Anzac Day has been observed on 25 April. The observance of Anzac Day usually follows a pattern which includes a dawn parade of returned service personnel and either a morning or afternoon parade followed by a memorial service with the laying of wreaths at a war memorial. During the day, flowers are laid on returned servicemen's graves and Anzac Day concerts are given in the evening.

The Anzac Day Act of 1920 stated that 25 April was to be observed throughout New Zealand as a public holiday. All licensed premises were to be closed and no race meetings held. This was amended by a 1921–22 Act which stated that 25 April was to be observed in all respects as if Anzac Day were a Sunday. This Act declared the observance of Anzac Day as a commemoration of the part taken by New Zealand troops in the Great War and of the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for the Empire. The Anzac Day Act of 1949 enlarged the scope of the original Act by making the day one of commemoration for those who served in the Second World War and the South Africa War as well as in the First World War.

Between the two world wars Anzac Day was most solemnly observed. Even today it is commemorated in a more sacred manner than Good Friday on which certain organised sporting events take place. Recently, there have been unsuccessful attempts to introduce recreational and sporting activities in the afternoon following the morning's memorial parades and services.

Such is the respect with which the term Anzac is held that an Order in Council was promulgated on 31 August 1916 forbidding the use of the word in connection with any trade or business.

by John Sidney Gully, M.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Assistant Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.

Of the 24 species of ants known to be present in New Zealand, probably only 10 are endemic (native), the others having been introduced accidentally from a variety of areas. The ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, as do the bees and wasps. Typical ants are of the superfamily Formicoidea in which there is one family, the Formicidae. The interesting aspect of New Zealand ants is the few species which occur here. Compared with the 630 or more species in Australia, our 24 total (10 endemic) is a very poor representation of the group.

The most primitive subfamily (Ponerinae) is represented in New Zealand by several species, some blind. Most New Zealand endemic ants are forest or scrub-land inhabitants, many developing only very small colonies when compared with the enormous colonies of gravel-bed ants, etc., in Australia and elsewhere. In many, particularly in the primitive species, the “caste” system is rather poorly developed, true “soldiers” being absent.

The common “house ants” are not endemic species, being cosmopolitan in distribution.

by Bruce Boucher Given, M.SC., Entomology Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Nelson.

For commerce this continent offers poor prospects. So expensive and unreliable is the transport link through the world's worst seas and most hazardous ice that a mineral find would need to be of extraordinary value to warrant its exploitation. Coal and radioactive ores can be more readily and cheaply obtained elsewhere. Justification for Antarctic exploration and settlement, then, is scientific curiosity and a determination to explore the world's last frontier. Strategic reasons have been cited and tourism suggested, but the scientific field is the major justification. This continent, together with its fringing oceans, represents some 10 per cent of the global surface, and it is as yet improperly known or understood.

The understanding of world radio transmission, of global earthquake shocks, and of world wind and water circulation, as well as the possibility of predicting southern hemisphere weather, are all aided by the stationing of scientists in this hitherto uninhabited spot. The list of disciplines requiring complete world coverage–which includes the Antarctic–is growing apace with the expansion of the sciences. Projects such as world magnetic and gravity surveys, and the study of climatic cycles and past and future ice ages (if the Antarctic ice were to melt, the oceans of the world would rise 200–300 ft) must be based in part on the work of Antarctic scientists. New Zealand is aware of its obligation in this respect, and its scientists in the Ross Dependency are making a small but effective contribution to world knowledge.

In 1965 more than 50 New Zealanders will proceed with various research projects, with parties at Scott Base and Hallett Station. The research programme will include further studies in upper-atmosphere physics, aurora, ionospherics, geomagnetism, and seismology.

by Ralph Hudson Wheeler, M.A., Senior Lecturer in Geography, Victoria University of Wellington.

• A Descriptive Atlas of New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (ed.) (1959)
• Antarctic Today, Simpson, F. A. (ed.) (1952)
• Provisional Gazetteer of the Ross Dependency, Helm, A. S. (1958), Suppl. (1960)
• Polar Record (1931– ), Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England
• Antarctica, Quarterly Bulletin of the New Zealand Antarctic Society
• Antarctica, Helm, A. S., and Miller, J. H. (1964).