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. Isotope analyses indicate that several individuals interred on the Bar may represent early arrivals who settled in New Zealand over 700 years ago. The location contains kōiwi tūpuna (ancestral remains) and taonga (treasures) associated with early Polynesian settlement. For direct descendants, Rangitāne o Wairau, the area is a wāhi tapu (sacred place) and the spiritual centre of their rohe. Archaeological evidence confirms the site as one of New Zealand's earliest known settlements.

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 village estimated by archaeologists to have supported a community of up to 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 strong evidence of Polynesian origins. Dental isotope analysis, which tracks the chemical markers of childhood diet and water sources, indicates that several individuals likely spent their early years in tropical East Polynesia before voyaging across the Pacific, though research continues into the mobility patterns of early populations. These findings support oral traditions of arrival from Hawaiki, alongside ongoing genetic research.

Excavations at the bar uncovered one of the most diverse collections 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.