Te Pokohiwi-o-Kupe (Wairau Bar)

Te Pokohiwi o Kupe | The Wairau Bar

Wairau Bar is a significant site in Marlborough and Pacific archaeology. Located at the mouth of the Wairau River, this gravel bar is the resting place of Māori ancestors, holding some of the earliest known burial sites in the country. At least four graves on the Bar belong to the first generation of Polynesian settlers. The location contains kōiwi tūpuna (ancestral remains) and taonga (treasures) of the first generation of Polynesian voyagers to settle in New Zealand, over 700 years ago. For direct descendants, Rangitāne o Wairau, the area is a wāhi tapu (sacred place) and the spiritual centre of their rohe. This site provides evidence marking the origin of Māori culture and the founding settlement of New Zealand.

Rangitāne iwi act as kaitiaki (guardians/custodians) of the area. Collaboration between Rangitāne, archaeologists, and scientists produced a substantial body of research shared in this exhibition. For decades, the origin of Māori remained an academic question. Te Pokohiwi provided conclusive evidence of these migrations.

Excavations and Early Settlement

In 1939, schoolboy Jim Eyles uncovered a 20 cm moa egg alongside stone and bone artefacts while searching the dunes. This discovery brought Roger Duff from Canterbury Museum to lead formal excavations that altered the understanding of New Zealand prehistory. Modern dating places the settlement between 1280 and 1300 AD. Early history on the bar was exposed through farming operations, fossicking, and systematic scientific investigation.

Excavations revealed a permanent founding village that supported at least 200 people. The community organised the settlement into distinct activity zones, including dedicated spaces for residential quarters, stone tool production, cooking hāngī, and ancestral burial grounds.

Exhibition Insights

The permanent exhibition outlines key facts about origins and daily life in the thirteenth century. It brings together clear information and artefacts from this early period of settlement.

Scientific analysis of kōiwi tūpuna buried at the site provides tangible proof of Polynesian origins. Advanced DNA and dental isotope analysis, which tracks the chemical signature of childhood diet and water, proves that multiple individuals spent their childhoods in East Polynesia before voyaging across the Pacific. These findings corroborate oral histories of the original arrivals from Hawaiki, with ongoing DNA studies working to pinpoint specific island groups.

Excavations at the bar uncovered the most diverse collection of early settlement taonga found in New Zealand, showing direct material links to East Polynesia. These items include necklaces fashioned from moa-bone reels, pendants carved from sperm-whale teeth, and worked serpentine.

Te Pokohiwi also operated as an extensive manufacturing centre for stone tools. Voyagers quarried pakohe (argillite) from nearby ranges to produce toki (adzes) on a large scale. The presence of Wairau Bar adzes across archaeological sites nationwide demonstrates the settlement's central economic and technological role throughout early New Zealand.