Dr Jill Hamel, 42 Ann Street, Dunedin. July 1985
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Page 1 THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND EUROPEAN HISTORY OF MORRISON’s, POPHAM’s AND MONEYMORE BLOCKS Dr Jill Hamel, 42 Ann Street, Dunedin. July 1985 Contents Introduction Topography, vegetation and climate Maori occupation European occupation: Popham’s and Morrison's Blocks The Ferry and the Port of Taieri The town of Beauly, the school and store The Sinclairs The other farms on Popham’s Block Morrison's Block The Moneymore Block Conclusions Recommendations References Site record form Introduction Morrison's and Popham's Blocks lie on the south side of the Taieri Gorge, an important water route into the Taieri Plain from the coast for both the Maoris and early European settlers CFig.1). Popham's Block lies beside the Taieri River at the point where it turns away from the Taieri Plain and runs through the coastal hills. The Moneymore Block (Fig.2) .lies about 30 kilometres to the south on a separate block of hills to the south of the Tokomairiro River, but like the other two blocks rises from the level of the plains up on to the slopes of the coastal Otago hills. The three blocks are unified by their topography they were close to major early European roads, but the history of Popham’s and Morrison's Blocks will be quite distinct from that of Moneymore because of the proximity of the Taieri River to the first two. All three blocks have been cultivated on the open spurs and faces and most of the gullies and dark faces carry gorse and scrub. Uncultivated grassland was the only area worth searching in detail for sites and the most likely spurs were searched for ovens. The river edges of Popham’s and Morrison’s Blocks were searched for midden sites where grass growth was not too dense. After ascertaining the history of European farm titles, old homestead sites were looked for and other traces of early European occupation. Topography, vegetation and climate All three blocks lie on dissected hillsides rising from sea level to 280 and 216m respectively for the Morrison's and Popham's blocks and from 100 to 300m for the Moneymore Block. The annual rainfall of 700 - 850mm would have been marginal for the survival of podocarp/broadleaf forest in the face of repeated fires after the arrival of Polynesian man. The north and west facing spurs in particular are dry, and during the period of Maori occupation it is unlikely that they ever carried Page 2 closed canopy forest. The most probable pattern of vegetation at this stage is likely to have been a mosaic of grassland/shrubland on the spurs and sunny faces with patches of forest in the gullies steadily decreasing in size and number over the centuries. At the time of European contact, there were only three or four patches of podocarp forest on the hillslopes running from Saddle Hill to Lake Waihola (Tuckett 1844), but there does seem to have been plenty of manuka shrubland. There is some evidence for kahikatea forest on the swampy ground of the plain. As well as carrying a very mixed range of vegetation types all three blocks are adjacent either to a river or to swampy lowlands. The hill soils of the district were recognised as "sour" by the first European settlers. The soil types are yellow-grey earths and intergrades to yellow-brown earths. Most of the slopes are Class VI land, and would never have been arable, even with horse-drawn implements. Maori Occupation: Taieri Gorge The proximity of a range of vegetation types along the edge of the useful water way of the Taieri River and close to the lakes and wetlands of the Taieri Plain suggests that the eastern end of the Taieri Gorge could have been a prime occupation site for Maori people. The Maoris of Southland and Otago followed a fairly regular annual round of collecting wild foods and other resources at appropriate seasons. Shortland mentions that the eels of Lake Waihola were considered to be particularly delicate in flavour (Shortland 1844), and there would have been a season of the year when eels were caught in large numbers and dried for later consumption. There was a settlement at Mataipapa on the north side of the Taieri Ferry Bridge in the 1840s (Fig.3) but this may not have been a major settlement throughout the prehistoric period. By 1840 Maori settlement patterns had been affected by the distribution of whaling stations and the availability of the Irish potato as a crop plant. The distribution of settlements after about 30 years of contact with sealers and whalers could be quite different from the pre-European pattern. The nearest known moa-hunter site is north of the Taieri River mouth. Areas of charcoal and food refuse occur around the Taieri Mouth bridge and up the southern side of the river for about a kilometre. The gorge itself and the Taieri Plain have never been surveyed for archaeological sites. Occasional finds have been made, including moa- hunter adzes from Berwick and an unusual paddle from the bed of Lake Waihola. On the Forest Service land, a small argillite adze was found behind the Horne's old cottage (Fig.3) 200 m south east of the southern end of the Taieri Ferry Bridge but there was no trace of a site. The adze could have been thrown out by a European occupant of the house who had found it elsewhere. The type of site likely to occur all along this river edge is a spread of charcoal and food refuse with bone and stone artefacts interspersed throughout. Such a site is commonly two to six metres across and shows as a lense of blackened soil 10-30 cm thick in eroding banks. A local informant, Max Popham, has been told that there were two Page 3 Maori sites on either side of the Forest Service boundary where it rises up the hill from the Titri Road (Fig.3). They lay on the south-west facing slopes of two shallow gullies about 10 m above the level of the lake (NZMS 280, H45, GR883643 and GR883642). No trace of the sites is visible on the surface but there could well be subsurface material protected by the turf and unbroken soil cover. Whole cockle shells were excavated by Max Popham about 10 years ago when he was digging a water hole in the next gully 300m to the south-west where the first Sinclair house was built (Fig.3). At this distance from the sea they were almost certainly part of a Maori refuse dump, and it is likely that the site on Forest Service land will also contain shells. Shell will be the most obvious indicators of the site. It is very likely that the formation of the old highway and the Taieri Ferry Bridge destroyed several sites along the river edge. Slumping of the hillside behind may also have covered or broken up sites. A dense covering of grass, reeds, sedge and willows prevents any remaining sites from being observed. The other likely site type on all three blocks is the large oven for cooking the stem and base of cabbage trees. The open spurs which had not been cultivated were searched for these, but none were found. Some may appear if vegetation is burnt off prior to planting. There was no trace of Maori occupation on the Moneymore Block and the nearest known sites are shell middens at the mouth of the Tokomairiro. Contact period. Shortland in December 1843 was the first European to describe the Taieri kaik, Mataipapa. He had walked down the coast to Taieri Mouth where he found some deserted huts on the north bank of the river. One of the Maoris with him had worked with the whalers on Taieri Island when the Wellers had operated a whaling station for a few years there from 1839. He knew that if the local people were not at the mouth of the river they would be at the kaik a few miles upstream and went off on a koradi raft to find them. He came back with two boats, manned by natives who were very pleased to see Shortland. They had seen no Europeans since the whaling station had closed and had nearly run out of tobacco! Shortland describes the kaik as being a mile from the western entrance of the Taieri Gorge and consisting of a few huts by the waterside, placed there for the convenience of eel-fishing in the nearby lakes. In December the Maoris were living on eels, fern root and greens described by Shortland as “wild turnip tops”. Their old potatoes were finished and the new ones not yet ready. They were also very adept at taking birds. When Shortland was there, Te Raki, the local chief, was in residence with three other men, six women and nine children. Te Raki helped Shortland return to Otakou by taking him by canoe up the Taieri River and Owhiro Stream almost to the present East Taieri township (Shortland 1844). Tuckett in his diary and in letters to the Wakefields about the purchase of the Otago Block describes the Maori settlements south of Otakou as consisting of a few Maoris at Kaka Point and Te Raki and Kuri Page 4 at the “Taiari” (Davis 1973). On the 1st May in 1844 while he was walking south along the eastern edge of the Taieri Plain, he was forced by the river to walk out to the sea coast and in passing the Taieri kaik described it as a settlement of two or three decent huts made of totara bark and as many raised stages for potato stores.