Records of the Canterbury Museum Volume 37 2023 

Phillip R Moore

ABSTRACT: Analysis of small artefact assemblages from archaeological sites in the Mackenzie Basin, inland South Canterbury, inferred to be associated with early moa-hunters, reveals that the main stone tools utilised by them were flakes and blades of silcrete and slate knives (ulu), supplemented by porcellanite flakes and items made from local rock types. Adzes of basalt and greywacke were also being used at some sites. Silcrete was probably obtained from the local Grays Hills quarry and porcellanite from the Bremner quarry in Central Otago. Other artefacts and lithic materials were undoubtedly transported from the east coast, via the Waitaki River valley, indicating the moa-hunters probably came from semi-permanent coastal occupation sites in South Canterbury and/or North Otago.

Rosanna McCully McEvedy and Marion Seymour

ABSTRACT: This article is written to mark the recent centenary of the rediscovery of significant rock art drawings at archaeological sites J39/1, J39/2 and J39/17 in the Pareora catchment. In 1921, Benjamin Evans and his young sons explored Craigmore Hill, Gordons Valley and Limestone Valley in order to locate local rock drawings. They located drawings of three moa with a seal (J39/1), a headless dog (J39/2) and three birdmen with a fish (J39/17). Evans immediately consulted Hugh McCully on what to do. The drawings were photographed and traced by Evans and McCully and interpreted by McCully within a now superseded pre-history paradigm promoted by Elsdon Best (1915) and Te Rangi Hīroa (1925). These first Pākehā efforts to document and analyse some of the rock art drawings in J39/1, J39/2 and J39/17 are presented here. Contemporary research findings and Ngāi Tahu perspectives provide lenses through which McCully’s interpretations can be viewed. This personal commemorative account is by McCully’s granddaughters who draw on historically important, unpublished images from the Evans, Hornsey and McCully family records dating from 1921 onwards.

Phillip R Moore

ABSTRACT: The Weka Pass (or Timpendean) rock shelter in North Canterbury contains some of the more important Māori drawings in the South Island. Re-examination of the stone artefacts recovered from the shelter floor during excavations in 1968 revealed that the majority are composed of chert, originating mainly from the Kaikōura area and local sources. Wider connections can also be established, from other stone materials, with the North Island, Nelson-Marlborough area, West Coast, and probably mid Canterbury. Previous radiocarbon dating indicates the shelter was used at least until the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

Julia Bradshaw, Paulien Martens and Lyndon Fraser

ABSTRACT: Canterbury Museum cares for a collection of 76 parasols largely acquired by Honorary Curator of Colonial Exhibits at the Museum, Rose Reynolds, during the second half of the twentieth century. Despite their significance as personal objects, parasols remain a mostly unexamined aspect of textile and fashion history. This paper addresses this gap by explaining the characteristics of the parasols in Canterbury Museum’s collection and situating parasol use in the context of nineteenth and early twentieth century Canterbury and New Zealand. Throughout the paper, parasols are highlighted as objects passed down matrilineal lines and intimately connected with women’s stories in the Museum.

Rodney Grapes and Sascha Nolden

ABSTRACT: Ferdinand von Hochstetter visited New Zealand in 1858–1859 and undertook an extensive survey in the central North Island and northernmost part of the South Island. He also took great interest in the Māori people and culture, including their descriptive vocabulary relating to geological phenomena and materials. He developed a special fascination with pounamu (nephrite jade) and the way it was used for the manufacture of ornaments, tools and weapons. After his return to Vienna a small selection of specimens formed the basis for early mineralogical analyses. In 1876 he was appointed the founding director of the Viennese Natural History Museum. One of the identified gaps in the collection was a mere pounamu and through Julius von Haast, Director of Canterbury Museum, and the Reverend James West Stack, he was able to purchase one of a pair of mere traditionally manufactured by hand using stone tools by Tamati Tikao of Ngāi Tahu who lived at Wainui, on Akaroa Harbour. The other mere was purchased by the natural history museum in Dresden under the direction of Adolf Bernhard Meyer. This paper presents for the first time an annotated English translation of Hochstetter’s original descriptive paper on the mere, published in 1884 and explores the provenance of the two mere held in the museum collections in Vienna and Dresden. Much of the information used by Hochstetter in his paper was provided by Reverend Stack, communicated through Julius von Haast.

The full volume of Records of the Canterbury Museum Volume 37 2023.