central and eastern Polynesia (Skinner 1921). Subsequently, Skinner maintained the Polynesian identity of all the prehistoric inhabitants of New Zealand. In 1924, Skinner drew attention to the presence of tanged adzes in New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, and Polynesia and also in those areas of Southeast Asia where Austronesian languages are spoken. In so doing, he substantiated his conclusions of the previous year (Skinner 1923) that the closest relationship of the Moriori culture (Chatham Islands) and the southern culture of the Maori was with eastern Polynesia.

Skinner’s insights were confirmed by ethnographer Edwin G. Burrows’s (1938) differentiation of Polynesia into a western cultural block (Samoa, Tonga, and neighboring islands) and eastern Polynesia, which joined the Society Islands with Hawaii, the Marquesas Islands, Easter Island, and New Zealand. Skinner employed the untrained but enthusiastic David Teviotdale as his archaeological collaborator, and Teviotdale’s collections of tanged adzes, fishhooks, bone and stone ornaments, and greenstone artifacts clearly demonstrated the association of Maori artifacts with moas at sites such as Waitaki, Shag River, and Little Papanui (Teviotdale 1932).

Culture-Historical Studies: 1950–1965

The excavation of thirty-six human burials at Wairau Bar, near Blenheim on the South Island, between 1939 and 1952 represents the introduction of culture-historical archaeology to New Zealand. Accompanying the human remains were grave goods, including parts of moa skeletons, moa egg “waterbottles,” tanged adzes, fishhooks, and necklaces of whale ivory “reels” and imitation whale teeth. The site also incorporated housing, areas for stone working, and cooking and midden dumping areas.

roger duff (1950) reformulated the ideas of Haast, Smith, Buck, and Skinner to argue that New Zealand’s prehistory could be divided into an early, or moa hunter, period of Maori culture, and a later period of Maori culture. Duff defined Maori culture in terms of the observations of Cook and the earliest ethnographers. He was, however, unable to accurately date the Wairau Bar burials or to demonstrate the chronological and stratigraphical relationships between his two culture periods. Consequently, Duff made use of the presence of tanged adzes and the age-area concepts of centers of innovation and marginal survival to argue that Wairau Bar dated from the earliest period of Hawaiki dispersals. Second, he used Smith’s chronology of the discovery of New Zealand in a.d. 950 and the arrival of the domestic plants kumara, taro, yams, and gourds with the great fleet in a.d. 1350 to both date and explain the development of the later Maori culture.

In 1955, Duff was able to announce a C-14 date of a.d. 1150 for Wairau Bar (Duff 1956). His predictions regarding the nature of the early period of eastern Polynesian culture were confirmed by Kenneth Emory and Yosihiko Sinoto of Hawaii’s Bishop Museum, who in 1964 discovered human burials at Maupiti in the Society Islands, which were associated with whale tooth pendants, fish lure shanks, and tanged adzes, items almost identical to those recovered in New Zealand.

Ideas of adaptation to the temperate New Zealand environment continued to run alongside ideas of migrations and racial or economic replacement as explanations for the development of the distinctive Maori material culture. Cook thought that the Maori houses reflected the cool New Zealand environment while Skinner (1924) explained divergences between Maori and eastern Polynesian art and culture as a response to the move from the tropics. Buck (1949) similarly maintained that local developments were responsible for the most distinctive Maori cultural items, including warm houses, clothing, and kumara storage pits. The use of large canoes and carved houses was stimulated by the availability of large trees while fortified pa, warfare, and curvilinear art forms were a response to the tribal rivalry and competition that took place after the arrival of the great fleet. Finally, Duff (1947) explained the terraced pa, the tangless rounded 2B adze, and greenstone ornaments, which he used to define his Maori period in terms of population growth and the innovative use of local materials.

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