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INTRODUCTION:
An archaeology for the modern world

Matthew Campbell, Simon Holdaway and Sarah Macready

Our purpose in preparing this volume is two-fold. Firstly, historical archaeology in New Zealand
is a well-enough established subdiscipline that a collection of papers on the subject is timely. It is
relatively new, having been formalised in the USA in the late 1960s, and applied in New Zealand
from the mid-1970s (Orser 2004; Smith 1990). One of the great strengths of historical archaeology
is its close attention to the particulars of place but, at the same time, Orser (2004) advocates an
approach that tackles global questions on a commensurate scale. The global and the local are not
mutually exclusive, in fact they are closely intertwined in the modern world where every place is
intimately connected with every other place. While New Zealand’s local historical archaeology
has developed its own trajectory, the papers in this volume demonstrate its relevance to the wider
international discipline. New Zealand has until recently lacked major development, so that the
material record of colonisation is still there in the ground to be investigated. Belich (2009) has
shown how this colonial process in New Zealand was in fact a global one, initially linked to
historical and economic conditions in Europe. The particulars of New Zealand’s colonial
settlement in turn reflect back on the global process.
New Zealand was the last major landmass to be settled by humans, with the East Polynesian
ancestors of the Maori arriving around AD 1280–1320 (Walter and Jacomb 2008; Wilmshurst et
al. 2008). Similarly, it was the last major landmass to be settled in the great European expansion
of the 16th–19th centuries. While the earliest European sites date to the late 18th century (Smith
this volume), settlement only really got underway after 1840 (Belich 1996; King 2003), a short
time-frame on which to base a historical archaeology (Lawrence this volume). The history of
New Zealand in the late 18th and early 19th centuries has been well documented in both popular
and scholarly form in the last 60 or more years (e.g., Sinclair 1959; Oliver 1960; Belich 1996,
2009; King 2003). Salmond (1991, 1997) and Ballara (1998, 2003) in particular have explored the
earliest years of Maori–European interaction and archaeologists have in turn been much influenced
by their work. Historical archaeology has had less influence on historians, though it has much to
contribute to this conversation. It can clarify and amend the documentary evidence; it can create a
richer and more nuanced account than can either history or archaeology on their own; it provides
context and a sense of place, and a time depth to cultural processes that documents generally miss.
Holdaway and Wallace (this volume) provide an example, showing that the wharenui was present
in a developed form at least a decade before it is visible in written sources.
Our second purpose is to honour the career of our friend and colleague Nigel Prickett, former
E. Earle Vaille Archaeologist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, who has been for many
years a stalwart of historical archaeology in New Zealand. Nigel’s work in the mid-1970s, while
not the first archaeological investigations of historic sites in New Zealand, was the first to be
recognisably a formal historical archaeology; it was his work that formalised and legitimised the
subdiscipline in this country.
Smith (1990) has provided a thorough assessment of historical archaeology in New Zealand up
to the late 1980s (see also Bedford 1996). While descriptions of 19th century Maori and European
fortifications were first published in the 1920s, it was not until 1959 that the first historic sites were

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FINDING OUR RECENT PAST: Historical Archaeology in New Zealand

excavated: the early historic Maori occupation at Orongo Bay (Green and Pullar 1960) and the
mid-19th century British barracks at Paremata (Davis 1963). There was, at that time, no specifically
historical archaeology, although sporadic interest in the early historic period continued. Subsequent
excavations centred on Maori sites, with the investigations, particularly of Les Groube (e.g., 1964
cited in Smith 1990) and Peter Coutts (e.g., 1972 cited in Smith 1990), focussed primarily on Maori
adoption and adaption of European material culture.
It was Nigel Prickett’s excavations of British fortifications in Taranaki at Omata Stockade
and Warea Reoubt (Prickett 1978a, 1978b), later bought together as a monograph (Prickett 1994),
that set the scene for subsequent historical archaeology in New Zealand, which has focussed on
the archaeology of New Zealand as a settler society. European settlement has dominated the field,
with Chinese settlement as a major secondary component (Ritchie 1986; Adamson and Bader this
volume). As Lawrence (this volume) summarises, New Zealand historical archaeology is known
internationally for studies of sealing and whaling, gold mining, Chinese settlement and culture
contact between Maori and Europeans. Nigel was instrumental in developing a number of these
studies. While he is best known for his work on 19th century British and Maori fortifications from
the New Zealand Wars, on which he is an acknowledged expert (Prickett 2002a), his work on the
archaeology of shore whaling, an important formative industry in New Zealand, is equally influential
(Prickett 1998, 2002b; Smith and Prickett 2006, 2008). Since the excavations at Warea and Omata
historical archaeology has flourished, as Smith’s (2004) update to his 1990 paper shows, and much
of this can be attributed to Nigel’s pioneering work. This volume is a tribute to his continued and,
we trust, continuing influence on the discipline.
Smith (1990: 86) has identified 1769, the year of Cook’s landfall and the beginning of European
intrusion into the Maori world, as the defining date distinguishing prehistoric from historical
archaeology. Maori, however, have a rich and well-documented pre-1769 traditional history; a people
with a strong sense of their own history and historiography already lived in these islands before
the arrival of Europeans, and their society is as amenable to historical archaeology as European
society. Oral traditions are as valid as any other documentary evidence (Bedford this volume).
Any piece of data that a historical scientist seeks to use must be critically evaluated. This is as
true of excavated archaeological data as it is of written or traditional histories. Historic sources are, by
their nature, incomplete, often inaccurate and frequently coloured by prejudice and self-interest. By
critically reviewing them, and bringing together as wide a range of sources and types of information
as possible, sufficiently robust inference about history may be made to produce a coherent consensus
(see Campbell 2008 and sources cited). In New Zealand, Maori traditional histories have been used
to interpret the archaeological record in the same way that post-1769 histories have; an example
is the traditionally documented Ngaiterangi invasion of the western Bay of Plenty in the early to
mid-18th century and the archaeologically documented changes in settlement patterns that followed
(Campbell 2008). Allen and Phillips (this volume) use traditional and written histories to discuss
the site of Opita on the Hauraki Plains, beginning their historic account in the 17th century.
The Maori archaeological and traditional historical record also provides the means to study
late 18th and early 19th century history and interaction between Maori and Europeans, as several
papers in this volume show (Bedford; Allen and Phillips; Holdaway and Wallace). Not long ago
Bedford (1996) could refer to the archaeology of post-contact Maori as “the ignored component”;
this is no longer the case. Maori material culture and social forms persisted well into the 19th century,
alongside the considered adoption and adaption of newly introduced European items. Maori were
active agents in this process, not passive recipients. Maori culture continued to change; though they
did not cease to be Maori, neither did they fail to adapt to new opportunities and new threats, and to

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 Campbell, Holdaway and Macready Introduction

engage with the European settler world. There is thus the opportunity to study continuities in Maori
culture that survived the events of 1769 and 1840, and flourished into the 20th century; at the same
time there are interesting and significant changes to document. And, of course, the interaction was
two way; settlers engaged equally with Maori. Culture, whether Maori, European or any other, is
constantly changing and it is the study of this change that forms part of the archaeologist’s task,
no matter the type of archaeology. The arrival of new technologies after 1769, particularly writing,
provides archaeologists with additional types of data, as shown by the papers in this volume, but
they did not result in wholesale cultural replacement.
If historical archaeology can legitimately examine Maori society both before and after Cook,
it also extends past the 19th century. Archaeological practice in New Zealand is regulated by the
Historic Places Act, which defines an archaeological site as predating 1900. While there is scope
for extending this protection to 20th century sites through a gazettal process, to date this has only
been undertaken for four sites, one of which is the Clark brickworks (Macready et al. this volume).
The New Zealand Archaeological Association site recording scheme has no cut-off date and it
has long been the practice of archaeologists to record coastal defences associated with the two
world wars (e.g., Walton 1990), but much less emphasis has been placed on military hospitals,
bases, camps and other infrastructure. Depression era workers’ camps remain unrecorded while
20th century episodes of civil disobedience, no less significant in nation-building if not officially
recognised, are equally unmarked: industrial unrest in 1913 and 1951, the 1970s Vietnam War
protests and the 1981 Springbok tour anti-apartheid protests are largely unmemorialised, let alone
studied by archaeologists. As a result of the legislative definition, 20th century archaeology is
largely ignored in New Zealand, although 20th century events are heavily implicated in the creation
of New Zealand’s ‘identity.’ Several papers in this volume, though centred on 19th century sites,
extend their analysis into the 20th century (Macready et al.; Adamson and Bader; Campbell and
Furey) as the sites and their history did not cease at the turn of the century. Twentieth century
archaeology provides a physical and analytical context to the 19th century component. The paper
by Petchey, focussing on the Horahora power station, is a welcome, if somewhat lonely, excursion
into the 20th century proper.
The domain of historical archaeology in New Zealand, then, extends from ca AD 1280 to at
least 2013, the year in which we write this introductory essay. In this view historical archaeology
need not be considered a separate (sub-)discipline as the dividing line between history and prehistory
has become blurred. Various definitions have been proposed in order to clarify what historical
archaeology is: the study of literate peoples, or of a specific timeframe, or the archaeology of
capitalism. None of these definitions have been very satisfactory. Part of the problem is the American
(USA) roots of historical archaeology; these definitions are proposed by American archaeologists
and are conditioned by the American experience, by which we mean both the historic experience of
being and becoming American, and the unfolding practice of historical archaeology in America. But
the New Zealand (or any other) experience is different, and these definitions do not always translate
beyond the concerns of the practitioners who propose them (even in their country of origin). In
New Zealand, archaeologists have developed their own practice and concerns, and New Zealand
historical archaeology is, as a result, different.
A more nuanced view is provided in particular by Charles Orser (2004), that historical
archaeology should be a ‘modern-world’ archaeology, concerned with the rise of the modern,
globalised world, the world we live in today. Orser refers to the “expansion of Europeans into the
non-European world” (2004: 275), but globalisation began at different times in different places,
and its tempo and nature also differed from place to place. Globalisation is a process that began in
Renaissance Europe and its effects were first felt on the African west coast and more particularly

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FINDING OUR RECENT PAST: Historical Archaeology in New Zealand

in the New World from the 16th century. The New Zealand leg of the process gathered momentum
in the half century between ca 1790 and 1840 (Smith this volume; Bedford this volume; Middleton
this volume). As these papers show, this period is particularly rewarding for historical archaeology.
In order to understand the origins of a distinctive New Zealand (or any other) society and its
place in the global world it is necessary to examine not just its development since 1769, but also
its antecedents, what it developed from (Johnson 1999). In the case of New Zealand settler society,
this is most obviously late Enlightenment / early Victorian Britain and, as Petchey (this volume)
shows, the Industrial Age. What social, economic or political processes, at both a personal and
social scale, drove people to immigrate? How did migrants differ from those they left behind? And
how are such factors reflected in the developing New Zealand culture and identity? These are not
questions that have been explicitly examined in this volume, though they provide the context for
several of the papers (Middleton; Macready et al.; Campbell and Furey).
The other primary antecedent of 19th century, and modern, New Zealand is the Maori one.
The combination of prehistoric archaeology, ethnography and traditional history provides us with
our knowledge of the economy and society of pre-1769 Maori. Interaction between settlers and
Maori influenced the subsequent development of colonial society (Lightfoot 1995: 199). Pre-1769
Maori archaeology is integral to any modern-world archaeology of New Zealand. In reality, history
is continuous, and has no beginning or end points (Taylor 2008: 4). While it may be legitimate to
restrict the focus of a particular study to a particular timeframe (as this volume does), any attempt
to institutionalise this separation inevitably fails. While the modern-world approach potentially
provides a useful focus and a shared project, any examination of European expansion into ‘new
lands’ immediately calls into question the peoples who were already present. New Zealand cannot be
shoehorned into a generic globalised framework; it has its own unique history and unique identity.
Alternatively, Smith (2004) has advocated that historical archaeology in New Zealand be an
archaeology of identity. This was in part a reaction to his assessment that historical archaeology had
largely failed to contribute to public or scholarly understandings of New Zealand’s social and cultural
history, though we trust this volume will go some way toward addressing this. The rise of develop-
ment-driven consultant archaeology has meant that most historical archaeology reports are limited
to site descriptions; Smith proposed that identity provided a contextual framework in which to place
this mass of data and make some sense of it. Unlike Orser’s (2004) global modern-world approach,
identity archaeology operates at a local level, exploring the lives of individuals and communities.
It is not our intent in this essay to provide a prescription for historical archaeology in
New Zealand; we wish neither to channel nor to restrict future research, nor would we want to
second-guess what the future of the discipline holds. Rather, this essay has sought to highlight
the wide range of themes that can legitimately be studied as historical archaeology and which
the papers in this volume cover. Historical archaeology resists easy categorisation; its time frame
and subject matter range more widely than expected; and attempts to reformulate it as a global
enterprise (modern-world) or a local one (identity archaeology) appear to be in conflict with
each other. Similarly, there is an apparent conflict between the conventional view of historical
archaeology as the archaeology of European settlement and the legitimate application of historical
archaeology methodologies to pre-European time frames. These tensions are not unique to New
Zealand but they have their own local expression. These tensions and contradictions, perhaps more
apparent than real, provide the impetus for exciting new directions as the papers in this volume
demonstrate. They also demonstrate that historical archaeology is an increasingly broad field,
where the most interesting stories can be found in unexpected corners.

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 Campbell, Holdaway and Macready Introduction

***
The papers in this volume cover a wide range of topics and defy easy categorisation. Even so,
a number of shared themes can be discerned. Bedford, Allen and Phillips, and Holdaway and
Wallace examine Maori sites, while Middleton touches explicitly on early interaction between
Maori and Pakeha. Adamson and Bader also examine cultural interaction, this time between
Chinese and Europeans. Campbell and Furey, and Macready and colleagues deal with European
settlers. Middleton, and Adamson and Bader, examine household archaeology, as do Campbell
and Furey. The latter expressly take up Smith’s (2004) challenge of developing an archaeology
of identity. Many other papers also touch, more or less implicitly, on identity, both European
and Maori. A number of studies discuss the interconnectedness of New Zealand with other parts
of the world. Adamson and Bader, for instance, discuss the coincidence of Chinese culture and
British tableware in a New Zealand context. Petchey relates changes in New Zealand industrial
technology to international developments. Middleton illustrates the impact of missionaries on
Maori, while Smith discusses the impact of globalisation on New Zealand even before European
settlement. Several of the papers originated in consultancy projects: Campbell and Furey;
Adamson and Bader; Holdaway and Wallace, Macready and colleagues; and, to a degree,
Bedford. Taken together the papers illustrate how New Zealand’s historical archaeologists are
investigating the full span of colonisation, settlement and industrial change and, in doing so, are
investigating the significance of New Zealand’s distinctive historical archaeological record
within a wider global context.
Because of this wide range of themes, papers are ordered chronologically rather than
thematically. The paper by Smith, who deals with the 18th century archaeological record of sealers
and whalers, is followed by Middleton’s account of mission activity in the Bay of Islands. Bedford’s
paper then deals with the historical archaeology of Northland. Two papers dealing with 19th
century Maori colonial interaction follow. Holdaway and Wallace discuss the history of a Maori
village dated to the mid-19th century in Taranaki, and Allen and Phillips discuss Maori settlement
at Ōpita in the Hauraki Plain. Three papers on later 19th century settler archaeology in Auckland
then follow: Campbell and Furey use household archaeology to investigate identity in 19th century
rural Mangere; Adamson and Bader discusses cultural interaction using a case study of Chinese-
European interaction; and Macready and colleagues report on the historical archaeology of two
of Auckland’s lesser known entrepreneurs. The paper by Petchey shifts from the archaeology of
households and individuals to that of industry, investigating changes in the technology of power
generation related with the gold mining industry. Finally, Lawrence reviews the papers, providing
an international perspective on historical archaeology in New Zealand. Combined, these papers
provide a synopsis of the both the potential and content of historical archaeology in New Zealand,
and they provide a tribute to the foresight Nigel Prickett showed in laying the foundations of
historical archaeology in New Zealand.

Notes
A glossary of Maori words is provided at the back of this volume.
Many papers refer to sites by their New Zealand Archaeological Association site number, e.g.,
R11/859, which indicates the map sheet (R11) on which the site is located. The NZAA site file is
available online at www.archsite.org.nz.
Unpublished reports of New Zealand archaeological excavations are held in the New Zealand
Historic Places Trust’s digital library and are available on request: www.historic.org.nz.

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