According to archaeologist Andrew Hoffman, the site has been identified as a Polynesian settlement from the 1300s used for cooking and gardening. It also had a specialist working area for making tools and repairing waka. Among the hundreds of artefacts unearthed are rare large sized hangi oven stones, moa fish hooks, basalt and chert rock tools, a large midden, and flakes of unused rock.
The site revealed a sequence of flooding events that enabled archaeologists to establish that Polynesians would use the site for a season and then move on.
Story: Claire Fitzjames, Waikato Times | Photo: Peter Drury, Fairfax NZ
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