OUR HISTORY
Pre-European
The first human settlers of Otago arrived from tropical East Polynesia in the early 1300s AD, and established large, permanent villages on the estuary mouths of most of the larger rivers in the region. Tropical food crops did not survive in the cool southern climate, and so early Maori relied heavily on wild plants, fish, marine mammals, moa, weka and other birds for their diet. They also adopted a highly mobile lifestyle, making forays inland to hunt and gather foods, and to procure stone for tools. These inland journeys of exploration and resource harvesting usually followed river valleys into the interior, and there are many archaeological sites near these, including campsites and rockshelters, ovens, stone tool quarries and working floors.
Macraes, being halfway between the Taieri River and Shag River valleys, and next to a pass formed by the Deepdell and Sheepwash creeks, was probably a significant early thoroughfare. The Taieri was an important route inland from the south, and Shag River mouth was home to the largest, most important, early Maori village in Otago.
Archaeological excavations at Shag River mouth have recovered numerous artefacts made from materials sourced from all over New Zealand, including obsidian from the Coromandel and Taupo, argillite from the Marlborough sounds and Riverton, and pounamu from the West Coast. However, the most abundant non-local stone at the site was silcrete – a hard glassy rock type found in abundance around Macraes Flat, but also occurring as far away as the Maniototo and Alexandra.
Silcrete was used to make long knife-like blade tools, useful for butchering moa, fur seals and other large animals. Because it was so well suited to these tasks the material was transported for hundreds of kilometres, from inland Otago to sites all along the southern coastline, and north into Canterbury.
There are important silcrete quarry sites and tool manufacturing areas close to Macraes Flat, including locations close to Fraser road and in the neighbouring Nenthorn Valley. Here archaeologists have found extensive work areas, where stone was broken up into manageable portions before being flaked into tools. Campsites under schist overhangs are located close to these quarry sites and contain fireplaces and burnt moa bone, butchery tools and other artefacts.
These quarries may only have been used for the first 100 years of human settlement, gradually falling out of use after the extinction of moa and other big game animals. But we do see a return of evidence of human activity in the vicinity after about 1650 AD. Associated with increased movement of northern Maori into the South Island, a growing trade in pounamu saw more overland journeys through the interior, and artefact caches of flax baskets, backpacks, footwear, rope and other items have been found dating to this period. Later Maori oral traditions record seasonal food gathering journeys, hunting weka or harvesting eels and freshwater crays at particular times of the year, indicating the continuing importance of inland resources in the period leading up to European arrival.
Content courtesy of Dr Tim Thomas, Archaeology Head of Programme, Otago University
