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Thursday, November 25, 2004
ARC CHI Policy and Procedures Manual
The 'Cultural Heritage Inventory Policy and Procedures Manual' has been produced as an Auckland Regional Counicl Technical Publication (number TP240).
Thursday, November 18, 2004
RSNZ: List of Fellows
Professor H M Leach Department of Anthropology, University of Otago, has been added to the lost of fellows.
Waikato redoubt plan receives $25k grant
A $25,000 donation from Trust Waikato will enable the Waipa District Council to begin interpretation of the historic redoubt site known as the Alexandra East Redoubt in Pirongia.
The redoubt was built by British troops in 1864.
Several artefacts uncovered during an archaeological dig at the site in 1998 are still to be processed before eventually being made available to Te Awamutu Museum. "
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Millions more moa in Aotearoa
The flightless moa that were once our biggest land animals may have been dying of natural causes well before Maori hunters arrived to finish them off.
Biologist Neil Gemmell of Canterbury University has calculated there were between 3 million and 12 million moa at their population peak 1000 to 6000 years ago - far more than the estimated 158,000 at the time Maori arrived about 700 years ago.
Dr Gemmell said the moa might have been devastated by a volcanic eruption, such as successive eruptions of Lake Taupo which dropped ash over much of the North Island, or through diseases spread by new bird species arriving from Australia. "
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Article: Moas in decline before humans arrived
Humans may not be entirely to blame for wiping out moas – the giant flightless birds that once grazed in New Zealand. A new study by researchers in the US and New Zealand suggests that a huge moa population existed in the few thousand years before the arrival of humans.
Skeletal remains and other clues had previously put the moa population in New Zealand at around 159,000 at the time humans arrived, one thousand years ago. But the latest research suggests that there were between 3 and 12 million moa. If both numbers are correct, that means something else decimated the bird population before humans finished it off some 500 years ago.
Neil Gemmell and his colleagues at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch and the US Forest Service in Missoula, Montana, reached the new estimate using published mitochrondrial DNA sequences from bone samples of 58 Dinornis, the largest of the 10 species of moa. The sequence data had previously been stored in GenBank, the public DNA database.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Hoping for hobbit DNA
An expert will examine hair and stone tool samples found in the 'hobbit cave' in Indonesia hoping to extract DNA.
Scientists recently announced their discovery of a species of mini-human - Homo floresiensis - on Flores island.
Environmental archaeologist Dr Carol Lentfer, of the Southern Cross University, is examining residues on stone tools found in the cave. Any tools found with blood residue will be handed over to ancient DNA specialist, Dr Alan Cooper, of Oxford University, for analysis. "
Museum alarm disabled
Burglars plundered Maori artefacts from Okains Bay Museum on Banks Peninsula by disabling the alarm then returning to burn their way through a skylight, a court has been told.
Stephen Geoffrey Apes, 21, Jay David Tweedie, 21, and Ryan Tritt, 22, got away with 10 historic greenstone implements and a flax kete late last month but were caught because a witness noted the number plate of their car while on an earlier preparation visit.
Police raided the home of Apes in Fendalton, Christchurch, where the greenstone implements, valued at $340,000, were found buried. The kete, valued at $2500, had been burned in a hangi. "
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Jim Hopkins: Short list drawn up for Holmes show with a difference
"And I think we need a woman. Our employers would like that. And ethnic would be good - from a charter point of view. Not too ethnic - just different."
"Yes," chorused the group. "Yes. Yes. Yes."
And so it was that a puzzled group of archaeologists beavering away in the broiling heat of a dank cave on the remote Indonesian island of Florez received a letter one day which simply began:
Dear Sirs (or Madams)
We understand you are the proud owners of a 12,000-year-old, metre-tall, hairy female humanoid for whom we have a very attractive job offer ...
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Pacific settlers left mysterious pottery
The mysterious face of a bearded man staring out from an ancient piece of pottery has given scientists a glimpse of what the first settlers of Fiji may have looked like.
Researchers said the "extraordinary discovery" was a vital clue in mapping out how the South Pacific came to be inhabited some 3000 years ago, suggesting the first direct link to islands some thousands of kilometres away.
The researchers think the pottery was the work of the Lapita people, a long-lost race that originated near modern-day Taiwan then migrated to Polynesia.
The fragment is also at least 200 years older than any other piece found in Fiji.
"This is the first time that a clearly recognisable face design made in three dimensions on a piece of Lapita pottery has been found in Fiji," said the University of the South Pacific researchers.
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