The Archaeology of Pouerua (review)

During the 1980s, the volcanic landscape incorporating the modified cone known as Pouerua in the inland Bay of Islands, New Zealand, was the subject of a large-scale archaeological investigation. The results of this work have been reported and interpreted in university theses, several published papers, and three volumes. The first two volumes as edited by project director Sutton present a series of reports on the archaeology of undefended settlements and smaller pa (defended earthwork sites) of the Pouerua area. The last volume of the project is under the multiple authorship of Sutton and two colleagues. It is a full report on the archaeology of the large, extensively terraced and defended Pouerua cone itself and has been long awaited in New Zealand archaeology.

This publication is without question one of the most important archaeological research statements on New Zealand pa. Chapter 1 begins with a critique of pa scholarship that sets out the fundamental assumptions of the volume. The authors imply that earlier views of pa as period artifacts or settlement types are inappropriate for the investigation of a complex sociopolitical site such as Pouerua. Chapters 1 through 3 propose that the only way to advance our understanding of a place like Pouerua is to identify in fine stratigraphic detail examples of the many events of the site's history. This is achieved through extensive survey and a combination of selective trench and large area excavations. Given the ambitious nature of this project, it is no surprise to learn that "the complexity of the excavations and the large number of stratigraphic layers identified . . . made analysis and interpretation difficult" and that a form of the Harris matrix was employed to sequence stratigraphic contexts (p. 29).

The greater part of the book is taken up with the documentation and interpretation of excavation results, including summary tables of events and layers, clear line drawings, some well-resolved photographs (chapters 5–11), an integrated cone sequence (chapter 12), and radiocarbon results (chapter 13). The focus of these chapters is on identified "events" that are separated out for description, labeled, and related by stratigraphy (where possible) for and between several discrete excavation areas. The investigation units include the elevated, constructed parts of the rim (tihi), defensive ditches and scarps, and separated terraces and terrace clusters from the upper to the lower parts of the cone. This has resulted in a detailed excavation report focused on excavated soils, layers, features, and objects. The detail is a little overwhelming in places, where the reader may need to refer back to the helpful summary overview of chapter 4 (intended to "help make the complex excavation data more accessible," p. 30). Even so, the writing is generally clear and straightforward and the report coherent. By the time one reaches the discussion of the form of the cone and its changing use over time in chapters 14 and 15, the major identified events and features at least are familiar, and their interpretation is generally satisfactory.

The careful description and sequence of construction events supports a compelling and somewhat surprising conclusion about Pouerua's complex history. The cone is interpreted as a place of defended and undefended uses that changed over time, where the most considerable settlement activities occurred before and after the time of its strongest and most conspicuous fortification. In short, when the greatest number of people were living on or using Pouerua most intensively, the cone itself was only lightly defended at best. This is an important contribution to our understanding of pa as sociopolitical monuments. "People were not cowering in defended settlements up on the Pouerua cone," the authors contend: They were instead "advertising their presence, wealth and situation . . . in a highly visible, even commanding, manner" (p. 233). In conclusion, the authors interpret Pouerua and by comparison other pa as places that combined "ceremonial, symbolic and defensive purposes" (p. 237).

The difficult task of presenting and correlating the complex excavation results is handled well overall. As one might expect with...