However, two archaic adzes do survive today, with 18 and 20 generation time depths, that are treated as sacred objects by the tribes that possess them, and have been used for symbolic work into recent times (see below). Proposing the term “archaic” to replace that of “moa hunter” he noted that: “No archaic adzes appear to have been seen in use by early European visitors.” 10 In this connection, an archaic adze, Duff 4A, hafted for Sir George Grey and held in the Auckland Museum, is lashed on in reverse, indicating either complete unfamiliarity with the tool or a sense of humour. In 1959 Golson produced the first comprehensive synthesis of the available cultural material from both islands, and looked at the evidence for culture change. In the North Island there were indications of this early stage from surface finds, mostly from the Far North and the Coromandel Peninsula, but the relationship between these and the vastly more numerous 2B adzes was not clear. 9ĭuring the time span covered above, archaeological interest and activity had been concentrated mainly in the South Island, where large river mouth sites yielded spectacular cultural material, and where the association between man and moa showed that at least the early stages of the island's prehistory were well represented. 8 He also remarks that “ probably covers eighty percent of all adzes in North Island collections”. it is virtually absent from the large Wairau collection, and also quite unknown in all demonstrable moa-hunter adze caches from the South Island”. When Duff proposed his typology in 1950, the adze form previously described as “Melanesian” was more clearly defined, as having a rounded quadrangular section, a full polish and lacking a grip. The adzes found in Moa-hunter strata can be nothing else than Polynesian”. Teviotdale, writing in 1932 about the southern half of the South Island, stated that “the difference between a group of Melanesian adzes and a group of adzes from Polynesia can be recognised at a glance. The former exhibited a “lack of variety in adze forms, which tend toward Melanesian types”, and the latter contained “a great diversity - 308 of types of adze showing, however, an overwhelming predominance of Polynesian forms”. 5 These were the Northern and Southern Culture Areas, corresponding to the North Island and the South Island including the Chathams. This difference was first formally expressed in 1921, when enough evidence had accumulated for Skinner to suggest two main culture divisions in New Zealand. Only one of Duff's and Skinner's varieties or Simmons' forms is needed to describe most of the adzes from the North Island the remaining categories apply mainly to South Island adzes. Indicated in the above classifications, and recognised long before, is a basic division of all New Zealand adzes. Since then only Simmons 4 has proposed an alternative typology, containing 22 forms, in an attempt to include adze forms that were awkward fits in the previous typologies. 2 Sixteen years later, Duff 3 set up a typology which described adzes of any Polynesian group in so doing he rearranged Skinner's categories into 5 types and 15 varieties. In 19 Skinner developed the first formal classification system, grouping the adzes of the southern half of the South Island into 10 types and 7 varieties. In 1912 Elsdon Best's comprehensive description of most of the adze forms present in New Zealand was published, 1 however, Best made little attempt at classification, and made no mention of location. In New Zealand, over 200 years has elapsed since the first Maori artefacts reached European hands. The reasons are clear: the adzes, having been a necessary part of Polynesian life, are numerous, contain a great deal of information for the culture-historian, and are extremely durable, often the only aspect of material culture that survives. For many years the study of stone adzes has been an important aspect of archaeological research in the Pacific.
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