Ohawe Beach

By global standards, human history in New Zealand is short, but what it lacks in length it makes up for with richness. In many parts of New Zealand it’s possible to visit sites relating to one period or another, but, occasionally, there are places that have it all. Ōhawe Beach is one such place.

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Ōhawe is a small village at the mouth of the Waingongoro River, about 5km west of Hāwera in South Taranaki. The village is overlooked by the distant but ever-present Mt Taranaki and the multi-layered eroding cliffs, which show the deeper geological past. The history of the area, including Māori oral traditions, could easily fill a book, but here I want to focus on the amazing archaeological record in the area.

The cliffs to the south of Ohawe Beach

The earliest archaeological discoveries at Ōhawe were made by Rev. Richard Taylor in 1843. Taylor identified a number of ovens and moa bones near the beach, he subsequently shared his discoveries with other Europeans including Governor George Grey and Walter Mantell. Mantell was a prolific collector of moa bone specimens, many of which he sent to the (in)famous naturalist Richard Owen in London. Owen was the first to identify the bone as that of a bird and describe moa as an extinct bird of similar size to an ostrich.

Over one-hundred years later in the 1960s Hāwera doctor and avocational archaeologist Alistair Buist carried out a series of excavations near the beach. Although much of his work occurred in the mid-to-late twentieth century, Buist’s writings still form the basis for much of the archaeological understanding of the Taranaki past. Buist identified hangi and the remains of a number of bird species other than the moa, including the extinct Haast Eagle, as well as fish and shellfish, which indicated early Māori occupants of the village were exploring and utilizing both the coastal and forest environment.

Artefacts found at the site also allow us to connect the tipuna of Ōhawe with the broader community of first colonists in Aotearoa and further afield. Obsidian (volcanic glass) provided a general-purpose cutting tool for early Māori and, usefully for archaeologists, it can be traced to its source using its geochemistry. In 2019 my colleague Dr Derek Pitman and I scanned a number of obsidian flakes from Taranaki coastal sites including Ōhawe. This work found the obsidian had largely been bought from Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty but also came from various sources in the Coromandel or Taupo. The obsidian was most likely left by the early settlers as they swept down the west coast or, perhaps, was passed on through the string of settlements that existed along the coast of the North Island during this time. Artefacts, such as adzes, were also found and were of a style that clearly connect the first occupants of Ōhawe to Polynesia.

So, after all this work what can we say about this early village and the people who lived there? The village was occupied about 700 years ago (around AD 1300) during the first settlement period of Aotearoa by the ancestors of Māori. Given this early date, the occupants were either born in Polynesia or had parents or grandparents that were born there. Far from being an isolated community, the early Ōhawe residents were connected to many other settlements around the North and Upper South Islands, including at the nearby Kaupokonui Stream mouth. They hunted, fished and foraged around the village and may also have looked to establish gardens nearby. Ultimately, after a decade or so the people moved, probably to the next inviting coastal location.

A 'moa-hunter' oven with a an articulated moa leg inside.

From an archaeological perspective, relatively little is known about Māori occupation around the Waingongoro Stream in the decades and centuries following the initial settlement period. A number of pā are adjacent to the Waingongoro including Te Rangatapu and Te Kawau on the high ground on either side of the stream mouth and storage pits sites are also visible in historical aerials but many have been destroyed by agricultural development, quarrying and erosion. A beautiful wooden bowl was discovered during drainage works beneath what is now the soldier’s cemetery. These sites and finds point to a thriving set of settlements with associated gardens and storage sites.

Missionaries and naturalists like John Skevington, Richard Taylor and Walter Mantell frequented the Ōhawe area in the mid-1800s, their accounts provide details about the location of Māori settlements at this time. Ōhawetokotoko, a village located above the cliffs to the east of the Waingongoro mouth, was initially settled by followers of Skevington from Waimate pā; the kainga gives its name to the modern settlement in the area. In 1844 Rev. Richard Taylor recorded the construction of ‘Rangatapu’ (also known as Tukekau) to the west of Ōhawetokotoko on what was probably an older pā site. Both Rangatapu and Ōhawetokotoko kainga had a church and were regularly visited by missionaries throughout the 1840s. In 1849, William Woon counted 130 people living at Rangatapu, but by 1866 the area was under military control and both sites were abandoned. In a letter to his father, Walter Mantell provides two sketches of the Ōhawe Beach area. In these sketches, both settlements are identified and a clear perspective of the landscape at that time is provided. 

Mantell’s sketche map of the location of villages (top) and the landscape of Ōhawe from sea

In March 1865, a British force under General Duncan Cameron marched north to Ōhawe and erected two redoubts on each side of the Waingongoro Stream. The first redoubt was located on the cliffs near the village of Ōhawetokotoko, a 1902 survey plan of the area  shows a small remnant of the redoubt remaining, although most had been lost to erosion. The second redoubt was located on the western side of the river, and may have remodelled aspects of the former Rangitoto pā. By April 1865 Cameron and much of his army had returned to Patea, leaving around 150 men from the 57th West Middlesex Regiment of Foot (known as the diehards) to garrison the two redoubts on the Waingongoro. The 57th was later replaced by the 18th Irish Regiment of Foot. The Waingongoro redoubt served as part of a network of fortifications during the campaigns of Chute and McDonnell in 1865-66, but was abandoned in 1868 early in the campaign against Titokowaru.  

An early survey plan of Ōhawe showing the remains of Cameron’s redoubt in the bottom left corner

In the years following the wars many of the sections surveyed for soldier settlement were sold off and a beach community grew up at Ōhawe, although the land immediately adjacent to the beach remains in Māori ownership. In the 1960s Te Rangatapu pā was mined. Several metres of aggregate were removed and with it went the last traces of the pā. The sea has also claimed historic sites. The redoubt on Ōhawe terrace has now been lost, so too has the former area of Ōhawetokotoko kainga; Te Kawau pā on the cliffs to the west of the Waingongoro Stream has also been severely eroded.

Despite all this loss, Ōhawe remains a fantastic cultural landscape, where many of the threads of our history intertwine.

origin story by heritage new zealand

Andrew Brown has built a successful career immersed in New Zealand archaeology. So how did he get involved in the quest to unearth the secrets of the mysterious Stonehenge?

Read below for a full excerpt from the Heritage New Zealand Summer 2021 issue, ORIGIN STORY.

Full excerpt:

For Andrew (Andy) Brown the opportunity to help uncover the secrets of one of the world's most famous monuments started with a knock on his door.

Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge scholar and giant of the UK archaeology scene, is also famed for shouting students a beer. So when the University College (UCL) Professor of British Later Prehistory called in to the Kiwi’s university office, the then-PhD student heeded the call and headed to the pub.

“We were having a beer and I said to Mike, ‘Do you have any digs on?’ because I’d been in the UK for more than a year and hadn’t done any digging, and ready wanted to,” recalls Andy, now a Whangārei-based consultant archaeologist.

“He said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to Wales. Do you want to come?’”

That invitation led to Andy working a number of stints on the Stones of Stonehenge Riverside Project - a major archaeological study of Stonehenge and its landscape, which ran from 2003 to 2009.

Stonehenge’s smaller bluestones (as opposed to its larger sarsens) originated in the Preseli Hills in Wales - around 230 kilometres away from where the monument stands today on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. The Stones of Stonehenge Project - which drew on experts from a wide range of fields - aimed to locate the quarries from which the bluestones had been sourced. It also sought evidence to support the theory that the stones were actually part of an earlier monument erected much closer to their source, and later disassembled and re-erected in Wiltshire.

“The findings of the project really showed Stonehenge in a different light,” says Andy. “It was remodelled a number of times and the bluestones were always a park of it. When you start engaging with Stonehenge in that way, you see it much more as a living, changing monument.”

Stonehenge’s place of origin is a world away from Andy’s own - and far from the focus of his career.

Although instilled with a passion for history by her parents during his childhood on a farm just outside Hāwera, Andy can’t recall an ‘aha’ moment when he realised archaeology was his calling.

“When I went to uni, it was to study archaeology; it wasn’t with a sense that I was going to be an archaeologist. I’d never met anyone who was an archaeologist, and more than a few people said to me, ‘How are you going to get a job doing that?’”

It was in his honours year at the University of Otago, when he joined a research group led by Richard Walter, and Chris Jacomb looking at the first century of Māori settlement, that a fire was really lit.

“We did a number of excavations of early sites. I was always just one of the team, and I found it cool looking at things like ovens; and it’s not just one object, you can see from its features how a village might have been laid out and how people were living in that space.”

That work proved a launching point for his academic career. For his master’s degree he looked at changes in material culture in early Māori settlements in Otago, then explored the topic more widely - looking across New Zealand and incorporating other factors like demography - during his PhD at UCL, which is among the top three universities globally for archaeology.

“One area of my master’s that really interested me was how you account for changes in material culture. One of my particular areas of interest was evolutionary theory - think about how artefacts change in a way that’s analogous to genetics, where some characteristics are selected for, and others piggyback or change in frequency through random processes.

“Stephen Shennan, a professor at UCL, is a thought leader in the space, so I thought I’d be cheeky and send him an email. He said he’d be interested in supervising, and that’s how my PhD started.”

Andy’s research continued during three years of postdoctoral study at Bournemouth University as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow.

Work on the Stone of Stonehenge Project punctuated his time in the UK. Initially, while at UCL, he was involved in excavating two quarry sites - at Craig Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog in Wales, identified as sources of the bluestones.

Later, while at Bournemouth University, he helped supervise a large geophysical survey, led by Kate Welham, Professor of Archaeological Sciences, to identify possible origin Stonehenge sites.

“The last year I was there we surveyed a site called Waun Mawn - a weather-beaten place on the Welsh hillside and we found some stone holes. The year after I left, they found more - and they’re fairy convinced that’s the location of the first erection of stones.”

In 2019 Andy returned to New Zealand from the UK. He now runs an archaeological consultancy, which in association with Whakatāne-based archaeologist Lynda Walter, carries out projects spanning the upper North Island.

But connections made through the Stones of Stonehenge Project continue.

Josie Hagan joined the project as a first-year archaeology student of Kate Welham, and with an interest in New Zealand, she struck up a conversation with Andy at the pub after a day’s fieldwork.

The pair kept in touch, with Andy later supervising Josie’s undergraduate dissertation at Bournemouth University, where she investigated the suitability of using LIDAR, 3D laser scanning, to explore New Zealand archaeological sites.

Her interest in New Zealand archaeology piqued, Josie has since moved here, undertaking archaeology work from Lynda, and now doing her master’s degree at the University of Otago. Due to finish in March 2022, he project is combining cultural mapping with traditional archaeological methods at a land block just south of Gisborne, exploring how this can support the aspirations of the Māori landowners.

“As undergraduates, we don’t study New Zealand archaeology in the UK, so there a lot to get my head around when I did my dissertation. But having Andy as my supervisor was brilliant, because he’s just so passionate about New Zealand archaeology,” says Josie.

“Now that I’m here, I feels like it’s a dream come true. It’s been a steep learning curve, but I can’t believe I’m actually here, that I have this job in archaeology, and how different my life is from two years ago.”

Likewise for Andy, the passion for the work continues.

“It’s such a cool job, and a good fit for my personality,” he explains.

“You’re always in different situations and get to talk to everyone from CEOs to digger operators, explaining what you want to do and why.

“The nature of the job means you’re also often outside, digging and exploring. Then there’s the discovery aspect, where you’re right on the edge, interpreting something tactile that’s right in front of you.”

Camp Waihi

“There are so many great places that l've had the privilege to go to and work at over the years, but in the end my favourite heritage places has to be somewhere in my turangawaewae - south Taranaki.

The place has so many layers of history, with sites from throughout the pre-European period, the New Zealand Wars and beyond into the agricultural period when so many, now disused, dairy factories sprang up.

The site I’d single out in Camp Waihi, south of Normanby and near where I grew up. The camp was the headquarters of the armed constabulary during the conflict with Titokowaru; the redoubt’s ditches have been ploughed by are still just visible in the paddock. It is marked by a small, often overgrown cairn made of river boulders. On the ground below is a soldiers’ cemetery associated with the camp where many of the casualties from Te Ngutu o te Manu are buried alongside more recent burials.

Right next to the cemetery is Pikituroa Pā, which has a number of storage pits circled by a deep defensive ditch. Little is known about Māori occupation of the site, but its defences were re-used for a redoubt prior to the construction of Camp Waihi. What I love about this place is that is has all these aspects of history interacting within such a small area.”