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Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi: Peoples, cultures and sequence in New Zealand
archaeology

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23
Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi:
Peoples, cultures and sequence in
New Zealand archaeology
Ian Smith
Anthropology Department, University of Otago, New Zealand
ian.smith@stonebow.otago.ac.nz

Introduction
Archaeologists have generally constructed culture-history sequences within either a prehistoric
or a historic time frame. As Lightfoot (1995) noted, this has constrained examination of the
interface between these two periods. What is argued here is that this has also limited archaeology’s
contributions to understanding the modern world. Cultural interfaces and their dynamics
dominate the 21st century world, yet archaeology generally deals only distantly, if at all, with
the key elements of this. For example, the people typically identified as ‘Polynesian’ in modern
New Zealand are not the descendants of the ‘Polynesian settlement’ of the country studied

immigrants of the second half of the 20th century and their New Zealand-born offspring,
while the latter concerns the arrival some 700 years earlier of ancestors of the indigenous
Maori population. Although these groups have ancestral connections in biology, language and
culture, they have quite different recent histories and distinctive identities in the modern world.
Archaeology has played a significant role in documenting what these groups share, but it has
contributed little to understanding the emergence of their distinctiveness.

into human interactions with fauna (e.g. Anderson 1989, 2002; Smith 2005; Leach 2006) and
flora (McGlone 1989; McGlone and Wilmshurst 1999) have made New Zealand one of the
foremost examples of the impact of human colonisation on island environments (Diamond
2000; Grayson 2001). Yet even here, the focus has been temporally constrained, with nearly
all of the attention placed on the environmental impacts of prehistoric colonisation. In only a
handful of cases has archaeological attention has been extended to encompass the environmental

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 368 Islands of Inquiry / Ian Smith

perspective this enables has enhanced understanding of not only the specific cases under
investigation, but also more general patterns of exploitation, response and outcomes.
This paper is a first attempt to construct an archaeological culture-history sequence that
encompasses the whole of New Zealand’s archaeological record. For the first two-thirds of this
(c. 500 years), it draws on almost a century and a half of archaeological research into pre-
European occupation. Archaeologically based sequences have been proposed since the 1870s
(von Haast 1872; Duff 1956; Golson 1959; Green 1963; Davidson 1984). Although population
replacement was initially posited as a driver of change, adaptation and innovation within a
single cultural tradition has been preferred since 1959. Golson’s terminology has been most
persistent, although exactly what his Archaic and Classic terms mean in the light of recent
chronometric shortening of New Zealand’s human time scale (Anderson 1991a; McFadgen
et al. 1994; Higham and Hogg 1997) has yet to be properly considered. Archaeology of the
post–1769 era has been recorded since the 1920s, and especially during the past two decades
(Smith 1991, 2004a). I am not aware of any archaeologically based sequences or models of
change proposed for this era.
The approach offered here uses as its main driver three key phases of immigration: the initial
Polynesian settlement; first European settlement; and subsequent multicultural immigration.
Each brought new people, cultural forms and economic modes. They were also characterised
by rapid adaptation to the New Zealand setting, making it appropriate to use indigenous terms
adopted by or applied to the incomers as period names. Maori, derived from ‘tangata maori’
(ordinary people), was adopted by descendants of the initial settlers to distinguish themselves
from the second wave of immigrants (Salmond 1997:21–22, 279). Of the various names Maori
applied to these incomers, the most persistent was Pakeha, probably from ‘pakepakeha’ (pale-
skinned people), and it soon became widely used (ibid). Although often extended to cover all
non-Maori New Zealanders, its use here is restricted to those of European descent. Images of
Kiwi, birds of the genus Apteryx, developed as a national emblem during the second half of the
19th century, and from the early 20th century, the name was adopted as a generic term for all
New Zealanders (Phillips 2007). Its use as a period name here is extended back to the beginnings
of the multicultural immigration phase. The implications of this approach for understanding
the relationships of New Zealand’s diverse peoples and cultures, and the nature of change
throughout the archaeological sequence are considered below, after the main characteristics of
each period are outlined.

Maori period
New Zealand was settled, near synchronously with other islands in southern Polynesia, about
1250–1300 AD (Anderson 2000; Higham and Jones 2004). Claims of earlier transient visits
(Holdaway 1996; Holdaway et al. 2002) have not been corroborated (Anderson and Higham
2004; Wilmshurst and Higham 2004). Indeed, chronometric hygiene has reduced the timescale
of human occupancy in New Zealand by about 25 percent, highlighting New Zealand’s
significance as a case study of human impact on the environment. Little attention has yet been
given to the implications of a shortened timescale for understanding New Zealand’s material or
social culture, and preliminary consideration of this is given here.
The first settlers came from central eastern Polynesia. Archaeology, biology, linguistics and
tradition all point towards the zone encompassing the Cook, Society and Marquesas islands as
a homeland area (Walter 2004). Close similarities in material culture, economy and settlement
pattern throughout this region make it difficult to define one or more specific island homes,
but also give us a fairly good idea of the cultural patterns that would have existed there (Walter

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 Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi: Peoples, cultures and sequence in New Zealand archaeology 369

et al. 2006:275–277). Households were the primary unit of production and labour, located
within sedentary villages as the main residential site type. These were situated so as to maximise
access to major resource zones for an economy based around inshore fishing, root and tree-crop
horticulture, husbandry of pigs, dogs and chickens, along with forest hunting and gathering.
Smaller specialised sites indicate that the village communities integrated these activities through
logistic mobility over relatively widespread territories. Key elements of the material-culture
assemblage include adzes with quadrangular, triangular and trapezoidal sections, and sometimes
a tanged lashing grip; shell fishing gear, dominated by trolling lures and one-piece bait hooks;
and a range of ornament forms, including reels and whale-tooth pendants (Walter 1996).
Artefacts closely matching these patterns are found in early New Zealand sites, while some
distinctly different forms were observed by the first European visitors (Davidson 1984:61).
These, and other contrasts, have encouraged a polarised view of the Maori period, emphasising
early hunting of now extinct moa and other ‘big game’, and later building of fortified pa, and
formalised in material-culture terms by Golson’s (1959) definition of Archaic and Classic phases.
Although problems with this approach have been long recognised (Groube 1967; Davidson
1984:223; Furey 2004), the simple bipartite division has persisted.
The chronometric hygiene revolution has brought these problems into sharper relief,
relegating to an ‘undated’ status many sites once considered to have been securely placed within
the sequence. Only four of the sites Golson used to define the Archaic material-culture assemblage
now have admissible dates, and his Classic phase was, from the outset, based on stratigraphically
insecure collections and early European observations (Furey 2004). Most attempts to define
more finely grained sequences of change within specific artefact classes (e.g. Crosby 1966; Hjarno
1967; Simmons 1973; Jacomb 1995) are equally lacking a secure chronological foundation.
Nor can this problem be overcome by reliance on proxy indicators of age, as their evidential
basis has also been undermined. A prime example is the use of evidence for hunting moa as an
indicator of age. When Anderson (1989) reviewed data from more than 300 moa-hunting sites,
some 73 were considered to have reliable radiocarbon ages, but application of rigorous criteria
for acceptability culled this to just 15 (Schmidt 2000). While this does not overturn more
than a century and a half of stratigraphic observations that moa remains are most commonly
found in the earlier layers of multi-strata sites, it severely limits certainty about the time span of
this activity and the usefulness of archaeological evidence of it for chronological placement of
otherwise undated deposits.
Where sites have been sufficiently well dated to indicate a relatively short occupation
span, and have had large artefact assemblages examined in detail, they have demonstrated the
contemporaneity of some artefact forms once thought to be chronologically distinctive (Anderson
et al. 1996; Furey 1996, 2002). This makes it difficult to view either the Archaic or Classic as
discrete, monolithic assemblages, or to retain the common practice of using these terms to
define chronological phases within the Maori period. There is now more than ever a critical
need to reassess the nature and timing of cultural changes during the Maori period. Detailed
assessment of this is beyond the scope of the present paper, but some initial propositions are
offered towards this end.
It is clear that some aspects of tropical East Polynesian cultural systems were transformed
rapidly on arrival in New Zealand. The most obvious example is the horticultural component
of the economy, with only six of the tropical root and tree crops viable, their growth restricted
to limited parts of the country, and new storage methods required (Furey 2006). New
opportunities were also apparent, with much larger and more abundant resources available for
hunting than was the case in the East Polynesian homeland. However, the inference that ‘big

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 370 Islands of Inquiry / Ian Smith

game’ hunting dominated early Maori economic activity cannot be sustained. There has been
only one analysis undertaken of the relative contributions to prehistoric diets from all classes
of fauna in a substantial nationwide sample of sites (Smith 2004b). This showed that marine
animals were the most important sources of meat throughout the Maori period, even in areas
where moa were hunted, with fish predominant in the north and marine mammals in central
and southern regions. Nor was ‘big game’ hunting confined to the initial phase of settlement.
Although seals had disappeared from the North Island by c. 1500 AD, they continued to be
hunted in parts of the South Island until the end of the Maori period (Smith 2005). As already
noted, it is difficult to define the period of moa hunting, and any regional variations in it.
Transformations in material culture are also likely to have varied in pace, with the differing
qualities of local materials influencing the rate of change from ancestral East Polynesian forms,
and innovations arising sporadically. Detailed analysis of assemblages with radiocarbon dates
that survive modern chronometric scrutiny will be required to document this and determine
which, if any, artefact forms co-varied through time.
One aspect of change which has withstood the scrutiny of chronometric hygiene is the
emergence of fortified pa about 1500 AD (Schmidt 1996). There have been widely varying
interpretations of what this might reflect about changing social, settlement and subsistence
patterns (Phillips and Campbell 2004). The interpretation preferred here is that pa are primarily
defended versions of the residential villages, satellite camps and storage facilties that occurred in
earlier times (Walter et al. 2006), and thus represent continuity, as much as change.
Most writers on the archaeology of the Maori period have drawn it to a close with the
arrival of Cook in 1769. While this marks the first European footfall on New Zealand soil,
and the major point of entry for Maori into the historical record (Salmond 1991, 1997), it is
questionable how much impact it had on the archaeological record. Initial contact was confined
in geographic extent, limited in duration, and followed by departure. A restricted range of
items, such as iron nails, axes, beads and glass, may have been added in small numbers to the
material inventory, but the only examples that can be securely provenanced to Cook’s voyages
are several medals distributed during his voyages (Jones 1984; Trotter and McCulloch 1989:97).
Furthermore, archaeological investigations at initial-contact-phase sites have highlighted the
continuity of Maori activities. Groube’s (1965, 1966) attempt to uncover archaeologically what
had been recorded by French explorers in 1772 showed this to have been substantially altered by
subsequent Maori occupation. Likewise, recent investigation of gardens at Anaura Bay observed
by Cook in 1769 disclosed a history of use beginning well before that time and continuing long
after (Horrocks et al. In press). While 1769 might justifiably be considered to mark the onset
of a protohistoric phase at the end of the Maori period, the near invisibility of this fleeting
ethnohistoric moment in the archaeological record and the absence of any non-Maori settlers
on New Zealand shores during the following two decades suggests it is of limited use in defining
the beginning of a major new period in the long-term culture-history sequence.

Pakeha period
The Pakeha period began when the first Europeans were left behind by their ship on New
Zealand shores in 1792. From this time forward, metal, glass and ceramic artefacts became
increasingly common in the archaeological record. Also apparent were new forms of housing,
typically with chimneys, and a new range of economic pursuits, many geared to markets beyond
New Zealand’s shores. The immigrant population grew very slowly, numbering only about 2000
people in 1839 (Adams 1977:28), or about 2.5 percent of the total, before the start of more
rapid growth which saw the Maori population outnumbered by the end of the 1850s (Pool

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 Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi: Peoples, cultures and sequence in New Zealand archaeology 371

1991:61). Immigrant activity is discussed here in four loosely defined phases, based on the initial
occurrence of settlement patterns that appear to have distinctive archaeological characteristics
and regional distributions. Consideration is also given to Maori sites of this period, and in
particular, the cultural and economic changes they reflect. Importantly, there are also sites that
cannot easily be characterised as either Maori or European.
In the first two decades of the Pakeha period, immigrants were sojourners, who spent short
periods in residence on New Zealand shores before departing. The first were a gang of 11 men
who lived at Luncheon Cove, Dusky Sound, for 11 months in 1792–93, hunting fur seals and
building at least two houses and a 60-ton schooner. Archaeological traces of the settlement
include remains of a forge, slag and ironwork from shipbuilding, and a few ceramic and glass
fragments (Smith and Gillies 1997). A second, larger group occupied nearby Facile Harbour
in 1795–1797, leaving a broader array of artefacts and the cobblestone floor and chimney of
a house (Smith and Gillies 1998). In each case, the archaeological record was depleted by the
acidic soils and high rainfall of the Fiordland coast, limiting what can be inferred about the
nature of subsistence and other cultural patterns.
The most important category of sojourner sites are those associated with the commercial
sealing industry, which flourished along the western and southern shores of the South Island and
Stewart Island. Analysis of both archaeological and historical evidence of the commercial sealing
industry has identified a small number of hut and cave sites used by sealing gangs either during
the initial boom of 1803–1812 or in the following two decades (Smith 2002). Few of these have
been excavated. Among those that have are three caves at Southport, Chalky Inlet, investigated
by Coutts (1972), who interpreted European artefacts in their upper layers as evidence of contact
between Maori occupants of the caves and European seamen. However, subsequently discovered
historical evidence shows at least one of these caves was lived in by sealing gangs in the 1820s
(Smith 2002:41), illustrating how difficult it is to distinguish the archaeological signature of
European sojourners subsisting on local resources from that of contemporary Maori. Changes
in southern South Island Maori subsistence and settlement patterns began to emerge after the
introduction of European potatoes by sealers in 1808–09 (Anderson 1998:72–75).
Another important area of early European contact was in the northern North Island,
where harbours were scouted for flax and timber during the early 1790s. Pelagic whaling ships
operated offshore, and by 1802, were calling regularly at the Bay of Islands for food, water and
fuel (Salmond 1997:321–325). Some sojourners are known to have lived ashore with Maori
(Orchiston 1972), but there are no sites that can be associated with such settlements. Potatoes
and pigs were introduced during this period and rapidly developed by Maori as trade products
(Middleton 2007a). Potatoes were also incorporated into traditional horticultural production
and spread rapidly throughout the North Island, well beyond direct European contact. Phillips’
(2000) analysis of sites on the Waihou River suggests that despite rapid adoption of potatoes
by Hauraki Maori, there was only limited incorporation of European material culture before
1820.
The second phase of the Pakeha period was inaugurated with the establishment of a
permanent residential settlement by missionaries at Oihi, Bay of Islands, in 1814 (Middleton
2003). Archaeological investigation of its successor at Te Puna (Middleton 2005, 2008) shows
the early New Zealand missions were small household-based enterprises that endeavoured
to draw local populations towards Christianity through education in domestic, agricultural
and industrial arts. At Kororareka, on the opposite side of the Bay of Islands, a permanent
settlement had developed by 1827 (Earle 1966). It appears to have originated as a Maori village
established to service visiting whaling ships, into which European mariners and traders settled.

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 372 Islands of Inquiry / Ian Smith

Archaeological investigations have assisted in charting its transformation over two decades from
a predominantly Maori settlement to a largely European one (Best 2002).
A residential settlement that cannot be classified easily as either Maori or European was
established in 1825 at Sealers Bay, Codfish Island, in the far south. This was a small village
occupied by a community of European men, mostly absconders from sealing gangs, Maori
women, and their mixed-race children (Middleton 2007b). Excavation has disclosed remains of
simple European-style housing, food remains that are mostly indigenous, and both an artefact
assemblage and cooking-related features that reflect elements of each cultural tradition (Smith
and Anderson 2007).
Expansion of residential settlement was slow, and confined almost entirely to the far
north and far south of the country until the end of the 1820s. One consequence of this was
geographical variation in Maori access to imported material culture, observed most dramatically
in relation to muskets, first acquired by some northern iwi from about 1806 (Ballara 2003:183).
Their incorporation into traditional warfare increased its lethality, and with greater access to
them, northern tribes conducted devastating raids that precipitated temporary abandonment
of some regions to the south. In archaeological terms, the most significant consequence was
the adaptation of traditional Maori defensive structures to accommodate the new threat (Jones
1994:83–94).
Maori demand for trade goods and the quest by Sydney merchants for new resources to
exploit stimulated the third phase of Pakeha settlement, which saw rapid dispersal of permanent
settlement along the coast. This began with the harvesting of flax and timber in the Hokianga
in 1826, and in the next five years isolated shore trading stations were established around the
North Island, focused initially on procurement of flax (Stokes 2002). Missionary settlement also
expanded around the North Island, but the most important driver of expanding settlement was
the shore whaling industry. This began in 1829, and during the 1830s and 1840s, at least 72
shore whaling stations were established, nearly all along the east coast between Foveaux Strait
in the south and Cape Runaway in the north. Of all these activities, it is shore whaling that has
attracted most archaeological attention (Campbell 1994; Prickett 1998, 2002a). A key feature of
the archaeological record is its diversity. At Oashore, on Banks Peninsula, housing, artefacts and
fauna are almost exclusively European in character, while at Te Hoe on Mahia Peninsula, they
exhibit distinctive Maori features (Smith and Prickett 2006, 2008). When contextualised with
the historical record, however, both sites highlight the cultural, social and economic entanglement
of Maori and a diverse range of immigrants within the communities that formed around whaling
stations. They also illustrate adaptations in the technology of whaling and economy and settlement
patterns as shore whaling declined in importance (Smith and Prickett nd).
There are a small number of excavated Maori sites with confirmed occupation during
the 1830s. Puriri and Opita, on the Waihou River (Phillips 2000), and Papahinu, adjacent to
Manukau Harbour (Foster and Sewell 1995), were reoccupied at this time, after being abandoned
during warfare in the 1820s. They each exhibit fundamentally traditional cultural patterns into
which imported material culture was incorporated very slowly. In parts of Northland and the
East Coast of the North Island, Maori cultivation of maize expanded rapidly in the 1830s,
predominantly as a trade crop (Hargreaves 1963:108; Petrie 2006). Although not precisely
dated, archaeological correlates of this may include the ditch and bank fences and ploughed
fields visible on the coastal flats at Nukutaurua, Mahia Peninsula (Jones 1994:251–255), and
the maize pollen from cores at Anaura Bay (Horrocks et al. In press).
The final phase of the Pakeha period began in 1840 with the establishment of formal
towns in Auckland, Wellington, Wanganui and Akaroa, soon followed by New Plymouth

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 Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi: Peoples, cultures and sequence in New Zealand archaeology 373

(1841), Nelson (1842), Dunedin (1848), Christchurch (1850) and Napier (1851). Continuous
occupation since first settlement often makes it difficult to identify archaeological traces of
the first decade or two within urban settings. These have been identified most successfully in
Auckland (Macready 1991), but are represented in as yet poorly reported excavations elsewhere.
The year 1840 also marks the beginning of British colonial governance of New Zealand, and
archaeological investigations have been undertaken at the first seat of government, at Okiato
(Robinson 1995), and at the first parliament buildings in Auckland (Smith and Goodwyn
1990). Expanding colonial settlement and changing economic and political circumstances gave
rise to sporadic conflict between the new government and some Maori. Archaeologically, this
is reflected in the appearance of new styles of fortifications constructed by both Maori and
European (Challis 1990; Smith 1989).
The 1840s and 1850s were a time of transition during which the principal settlement
localities and economic pursuits that had sustained the Maori, European and mixed-race
communities throughout the Pakeha period were marginalised by the burgeoning newly
immigrant population and changes in economic focus. Pastoral farming, which had begun in
the 1830s, expanded steadily through the Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay, Marlborough, Canterbury
and Otago. Matanaka, in coastal Otago, is one of very few farmsteads established in this era to
have been investigated by archaeological techniques (Knight and Coutts 1975). These decades
were also the peak years of production for Maori agriculture, particularly the cultivation and
milling of wheat, and for Maori engagement in the coastal trade that brought food and other
products into the growing colonial towns (Petrie 2006). The changes this may have induced in
settlement patterns have yet to be explored archaeologically. There are very few excavated Maori
sites that can be confidently attributed to the 1840s or 1850s. The phase III occupation at Opita
is one, and it shows a significantly greater presence of European artefacts than earlier Pakeha-
period sites along the Waihou river (Phillips 2000).

Kiwi period
The year 1860 is used to define the beginning of the Kiwi period. It marks the first time since its
arrival some 600 years earlier that the Maori population was outnumbered. In part, this reflects
the steady decline in Maori numbers through the 19th century (Pool 1991), but the growth in
immigrant numbers was a more important factor. This had become so rapid that the 1860s and
1870s was the only time since the late 13th century that people born overseas outnumbered those
born in New Zealand (McKinnon 1997). The new immigrants were ethnically diverse. This was
also true of the Pakeha period, although lack of data makes it impossible to document this, other
than anecdotally, but the small, isolated, often pluralistic communities that dominated this era
diminished its importance. The English made up probably just under half the new immigrants,
followed by the Scottish, Irish and Australians, with Germans, Scandinavians, Chinese, Welsh
and Americans making up much smaller groupings (Belich 1996:318).
The year 1860 also represents a major transition in ethnic politics, with rising immigrant
demands for land and heightening Maori resistance to its loss giving rise to the first of a series of
wars between various iwi and changing combinations of British, colonial and Maori forces. This
stimulated two decades of fortification building throughout central regions of the North Island
(Prickett 2002b), and led to massive alienation of land that displaced many Maori communities
and disrupted their economic activities. Te Oropuriri, a small Taranaki village that spans the
onset of the Kiwi period, shows that Maori housing retained much of its traditional character,
but the material-culture inventory was dominated by ceramics, glassware and other European-
made items (Holdaway and Gibbs 2006). There are very few excavated Maori sites from the

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 374 Islands of Inquiry / Ian Smith

1860–1900 period, but where evidence is available, such as in the phase IV occupation at Opita
(Phillips 2000) and at the Poutu and Te Rata settlements in the interior of the North Island
(Newman 1988), imported artefacts are overwhelmingly dominant, suggesting widespread
adoption of new cultural forms.
Of the new immigrant groups, only the Chinese have been subject to explicit archaeological
scrutiny, which has shown they made a distinctive mark in the record following their arrival
in 1865 (Ritchie 2003). Ceramics, food containers, opium-smoking paraphernalia and food
preparation methods all provide clear indications of Chinese presence. While this reflects a
distinct element of conservatism, adaptation to their new homeland is also evident in the
adoption of locally available foods, beverages and building materials. Although no attempt has
yet been made to explore this, it is expected other immigrant communities will be identified
not so much through a distinct material signal, but through the integration of their oral and
documentary histories with the archaeological record. It has been argued elsewhere that this
approach to the analysis of community identity is one of the key challenges facing historical
archaeology in New Zealand today (Smith 2004a).
At a more general level, there are several features of the artefactual record that characterise
the period after 1860. Glass bottles appear in a wider range of types, but within each, they are
more standardised in form. Nearly all embossing on bottles, other than some forms of base
marks, date from after this time (Baugher-Perlin 1982). Ceramics include new decorative forms
such as Japanese-themed central motifs (Samford 1997) and stand-alone banded rims (Brooks
2005:36). Further analysis will refine and expand this list.
The archaeological record of the first four decades of the Kiwi period is characterised by
expansion in the geographic range of non-Maori settlement, the emergence of new economic
pursuits, and the growth of urbanised settlements. It was the discovery of gold by Australian-
born immigrant Gabriel Read in 1861 that sparked the first of a series of gold rushes that
heightened the pace of immigration and transformed New Zealand’s mid-19th century
economy. This industry was almost certainly the largest single contributor to the making of
New Zealand’s archaeological landscape in terms of the acreage of land covered by sites (Ritchie
1991). It brought settlement to parts of the interior that had previously seen little other than
transient Maori occupation, and left an archaeological record of fleeting camp sites (e.g. Bristow
1995) and permanent towns (e.g. Hamel 2004a). The wealth it generated, both directly and
through mercantile support, transformed a number of towns into substantial cities. Excavations
have shown that rebuilding of downtown areas variously destroyed and preserved older Pakeha-
period parts of some cities (Petchey 2004), while those in foreshore reclamations have yielded
substantial early Kiwi-period deposits (Bickler et al. 2004). Pastoral farming was another
significant contributor to the emerging Kiwi economy. Initially, wool was its chief product
and sheep numbers grew rapidly until the late 1860s, but its major growth took place after the
development of refrigerated sea transport in the 1880s enabled large-scale meat production.
Early development of the meat industry has been investigated archaeologically at Totara estate
(Hamel 2004b), as has the changing importance of various farmed animals in 19th century
diets and food supply networks (Watson 2000). Other large-scale industries, such as coal and
coke production (Oliver and Wood 1981), emerged during this time, as did the road and rail
infrastructure (Jacomb 2000) that for the first time in New Zealand’s history reduced reliance
on maritime communication and transport.
The foregoing discussion has been confined to the initial decades of the Kiwi period. To
date, there has been only limited archaeological investigation of the transformations in economy,
settlement pattern and material culture that occurred during the 20th century, but it is expected

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 Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi: Peoples, cultures and sequence in New Zealand archaeology 375

these will come under increasing scrutiny as the 21st century world impacts on the material
remains of the 20th century.

Discussion
Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi are names used to refer to both groups of people and aspects of culture
in New Zealand, and it is pertinent to set out what is intended by adopting them as period names
in the sequence proposed here, and the relationships between these uses of the terms. They were
employed as period names to emphasise that the advent of new peoples and their adaptation to
this country were significant drivers of cultural change. As the foregoing review has illustrated,
new forms of material culture, settlement pattern and economy emerged with each new phase
of immigration, and these are recognisable through the archaeological record. In part, these new
forms reflect the origins of the immigrants, in Polynesia, Europe or elsewhere. Artefact forms,
styles of housing and modes of subsistence were transplanted from these homelands to New
Zealand. However, the archaeological record shows that adaptation to the local setting was also
an important contributor to change. For the first settlers, it was primarily differences in climate
and resources that drove the process. For those that followed, adaptations also had to be made to
the social and political world created by earlier arrivals. As indigenous names for successive waves
of people, the terms Maori, Pakeha and Kiwi combine these concepts of advent and adaptation.
They are also intended to emphasise both the persistence and entanglement of peoples
and cultures in the full sweep of New Zealand’s history. It is obvious the people who became
Maori and their culture were the only ones present in New Zealand during the Maori period.
Their descendants and culture persist to this day, although transformed in many ways by
biological and cultural entanglement with subsequent immigrants. As Anderson (1991b) has
demonstrated, biological entanglement was rapid, and the resulting mixed-race communities
followed diverse social and cultural trajectories. Archaeological evidence from the Pakeha and
Kiwi periods provides a partial material record of such communities and has great potential to
enhance understanding of both the persistence of traditional practices and the transformations
through hybridisation that have shaped modern Maori culture.
Pakeha people and culture were defined, from the outset, by their entanglement with
Maori. The small size and tenuous nature of their founding communities, coupled with the
economic, political and numerical strength of Maori, encouraged interdependence, cooperation
and intermarriage. Archaeology has begun to identify material evidence for the incorporation
of Maori practices into early Pakeha culture. Like Maori, early Pakeha communities were
transformed by the influx of immigrants in the 1860s. In their case, however, the majority of
incomers were from a similar cultural tradition. This encouraged persistence of the term Pakeha
despite a significant dilution of the early Maori influence. Nonetheless, fundamental aspects of
Maori-Pakeha relations established during the Pakeha period have persisted or re-emerged as
significant drivers of modern political, economic and cultural patterns in New Zealand.
Whereas Maori and Pakeha tend to be used as exclusive terms, Kiwi is inherently inclusive.
When used to describe people, it refers to all those, including Maori, Pakeha, subsequent migrants
and their diverse range of mixed-race offspring, who call New Zealand home. In a cultural
sense, it includes the contributions of all resident communities. Modern Kiwi culture weaves
together a plurality of strands. The dominant Pakeha strand, although originally derived largely
from British and North American traditions, has a distinctive local flavour that distinguishes it
from neighbouring Australia. Modern Maori culture retains ancestral elements from Polynesia
shaped by seven centuries of adaptation, innovation, and borrowing from and hybridisation with
subsequent immigrant cultures. In turn, it has influenced, but contrasts with, the hybrid Pasifika

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 376 Islands of Inquiry / Ian Smith

culture of the modern Polynesian migrants to New Zealand. Likewise, the descendants of late
19th and early 20th century immigrants from China have cultural patterns distinct from those
of recent Chinese migrants. These, and many other examples that could be cited, demonstrate
that each of strand of Kiwi culture has its own history. Archaeology has a significant role to play
in charting these histories and discerning the processes that have shaped them. The long-term
culture-history sequence proposed here provides a structure within which to achieve this.

Acknowledgments
The idea for this paper emerged while working with Atholl on the archaeology of Codfish
Island/Whenua Hou, the southern New Zealand homeland of his Maori and Pakeha ancestors.
Those investigations were funded by the Department of Conservation and the University of
Otago. The paper also reflects a sustained period of research into the emergence of Pakeha
culture supported by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand. I am grateful for
comments on the paper by Angela Middleton and an anonymous referee, and to Atholl for three
decades of stimulating fieldwork, discussion and digression.

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