Landscape archaeology—The value of context to archaeological interpretation: A case study from Waitore, New Zealand

Abstract

Landscape archaeology is a relatively young subdiscipline that has grown in a multitude of directions, particularly in recent decades. It is strongly multidisciplinary and has borrowed tools from an array of fields, including the archaeological sciences, geology, geography, palaeoecology and geochronology; many landscape archaeologists have backgrounds beyond traditional archaeology sensu stricto. Landscape archaeology has become an important facet of most archaeological excavations and has shifted the focus of archaeological interpretation well beyond existing paradigms. In this paper, we report on a landscape reinterpretation of a single archaeological site in New Zealand. Waitore comprises an assemblage of artefacts, including wooden pieces (e.g., broken canoe fragments), oven stones, stone sinkers and fish bones but is not associated with an occupation site. The assemblage was originally studied in the 1970s—at a time when there was little understanding of tectonic processes in the region—and attributed to permanent ritual interment or temporary burial based largely on ethnographic analogies with contemporary Māori practices. By bringing together the physical and cultural components of landscape archaeology, we reinterpret these artefacts as being the scattered remnants of a reworked occupation site, possibly associated with a tsunami inundation dating to around the 15th century. We conclude that re‐examination of past archaeological work is as relevant now as undertaking new research. We also insist upon the importance of multidisciplinary dialogue, particularly between the social and physical sciences, in helping to move beyond current paradigms.

Did a 3800-year-old M w ~9.5 earthquake trigger major social disruption in the Atacama Desert?

“…It is estimated that the 1896 AD Sanriku tsunami killed up to 83% of the population of some villages ( 54 ). Several historically and archaeologically documented cases in Japan, New Zealand, North America, and the Pacific also attest that coastal areas were depopulated following massive tsunamis as the population moved inland and uphill ( 53 , 55 , 56 ). In the area potentially struck by the ~3800 cal yr B.P.…”

“…event and seem to have been effective for local and regional long-term adaptation. However, knowledge of these giant events and their consequences seems to wane over the passage of time, a common occurrence throughout the Pacific region ( 56 , 60 ). By about 1000 cal yr B.P., residential sites along the coast of northern Chile were again located near the shoreline, and various agglutinated cemeteries were placed at altitudes of ~10 m a.s.l.…”

Late Roman–Early Byzantine Leukos settlement, Karpathos, Greece: Geoarchaeology, archeoseismology, and paleogeography

“…Structural geology, radiocarbon geochronology, and coastal geography are integrated with the archeological remains of ancient Leukos to appraise syn‐ to post‐Early Byzantine seismicity. A basic tenant of landscape archeology is the fusion of cultural and environmental data (Goff et al, 2021), but few studies link archeology and structural geology, which is an oversight in tectonically active coastal areas such as the circum‐Mediterranean, Pacific, and Caribbean seas.…”

Reconstructing a palaeotsunami: Geomorphological and cultural change associated with a catastrophic 15th century event, Kāpiti Coast, Aotearoa/New Zealand

“…The evidence for such tsunamis is often preserved in the palaeoenvironmental record of coastal sites with wetlands formed behind some form of coastal barrier in particular possessing favourable conditions for the preservation of geological, geomorphological and archaeological data (e.g. Goff et al, 2021; Shtienberg et al, 2020).…”

“…In A/NZ, Māori settlement of the islands occurred around 1250–1285 CE (Bunbury et al, 2022), with written records starting with European arrival in the late 1700s (McFadgen, 2007). As such, a complete understanding of human-tsunami interactions in A/NZ, even in the relatively recent past, can only be established via the analysis of sedimentological, geological and geomorphological data, combined with archaeological and anthropological records where possible (Goff et al, 2021).…”