Early occupation of the Tahanga area:
Tahanga forms part of an important historical and cultural landscape on the eastern side of the Coromandel peninsula, which contains widespread evidence of early human settlement in New Zealand. Traditional Maori sources link the area with early exploration, notably by the legendary travellers Toi and Kupe. The Coromandel is known as ‘Te Paeroa o Toi’ or ‘Toi’s long mountain ridge’; the Whitianga River is ‘Whitianga o Kupe’ or ‘Kupe’s crossing.’ A pearl shell lure discovered at Tairua, some 30 km to the south of Tahanga, is identical to types found in the Marquesas Islands, and has been considered the only object of non-New Zealand origin found in any archaeological site of the period. It may indicate that the area was included in the earliest phases of discovery and settlement by arrivals from East Polynesia, perhaps in the thirteenth century.
The Kuaotunu Peninsula, at the eastern end of which Tahanga is located, is particularly notable for providing knowledge about human activity in the first centuries after discovery, and has been regarded to have been a focus for Maori activity during this period. A site at Sarah’s Gully, between Otama and Opito Bay, is one of only two early locations in the North Island for which information on village layout and use of space has been uncovered. It incorporated houses, storage pits, ovens and other features, and contained burials inside the settlement - typical of East Polynesian custom at the time. Even closer to Tahanga, excavations at Skippers Ridge have revealed a settlement with pits of various shapes, which was probably occupied before the fifteenth century. These and other sites in the vicinity appear to have been occupied in association with Tahanga, which is likely to have been discovered early on during the exploration of New Zealand.
Tahanga itself is a prominent mountain overlooking Opito Bay to the north, and was a major source of basalt for early peoples. Basaltic stone was used elsewhere in the Pacific for tool production, and the creation of adzes in particular. Notable sources included Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Tataga Matua in Samoa, the Society Islands, Eaio in the Marquesas Islands, and Pitcairn Island. Quarrying basalt for adze production at Tahanga is considered to have begun on the site by the early fourteenth century. The organisation of initial peoples in the area is unknown, although it is believed that the current tangata whenua of Tahanga - Ngati Hei - represent a welding together of earlier populations with chiefly lines of Arawa origin. Ngati Hei trace their ancestry from Hei, variously given as elder brother or uncle of Tamatekapua, ariki of the Arawa canoe, who settled in the Coromandel shortly after the arrival of Te Arawa in New Zealand.
Early stone tool manufacture in New Zealand:
Stone tools performed important roles in early Polynesian New Zealand, being used for a variety of purposes including butchering, timber-working and ceremonial activities. Their manufacture appears to have occurred soon after the first settlers arrived from the Pacific Islands, where the range of available stone was limited to coral limestone and volcanic rock, mostly basalt. Evidence for stone working on some early sites in New Zealand indicates that experimentation with unfamiliar materials such as mudstones and silicious limestones may have taken place, as at Clarence Mouth and Kaikoura in the South Island. Other production utilized greywacke, obsidian and argillite. Basalt is likely to have been a more familiar, and possibly more sought after material, particularly valued for the production of larger items such as adzes. The most important source of basalt exploited in New Zealand’s early history was that from the flanks of Tahanga Mountain.
Adze production at Tahanga:
Tahanga’s significance as a stone source to Maori can be seen in its inclusion in an oral tale about Poutini, a guardian taniwha protecting the mauri or spiritual essence of greenstone. The account effectively provides a map of stone sources in New Zealand from which valued material was quarried, and has been described as the country’s first ‘geological survey’. Tahanga is the place where Poutini first took Waitaiki, the wife of Tamaahua, whom he abducted from nearby Tuhua or Mayor Island. Poutini lit a fire on the beach, in order to warm Waitaiki. Pursued by Tamaahua, the pair subsequently travelled on to other notable stone sources throughout the North and South Islands, including Whangamata (a source of black obsidian), Rangitoto or D’Urville Island (metamorphised argillite) and Onetahua or Farewell Spit (‘floater’ stones from the Nelson mineral belt), before Waitaiki was transformed into greenstone in the upper Arahura River. Tamaahua returned to Tuhua, itself a source of obsidian, and later became known in the traditions of many tribes in the Coromandel and northern Bay of Plenty region.
The main basalt sources used for adze production at Tahanga are located to the south of Opito Beach, on and around Tahanga Mountain. Exploitation evidently occurred from early in New Zealand prehistory, although the workings are dated only indirectly through the discovery of its adzes on other sites. Moore suggests that Tahanga was an important centre for adze manufacture and distribution from about 1300 to 1500 A.D. Its adzes have been found in some of the earliest dated archaeological sites in the northern half of the North Island, including Houhora in the Far North, where examples may pre-date most of those found closer to the quarries. The settlement at Houhora has been radiocarbon-dated to the early fourteenth century and contained a large number of Tahanga adzes despite local basalt being available from nearby Mount Camel.
Stone adzes are believed to have been used primarily for tasks linked with timber felling and woodworking, being attached to timber hafts as a functioning tool. Considered by some as the most important tool available to early Maori, they were initially manufactured by being hammered and pecked to produce the right finish, although later methods in prehistory preferred sawing and grinding.
Some of the basalt at Tahanga was particularly suitable for quality adze production, being fine-grained and capable of flaking well. Variability in the quality of the rock, however, resulted in not all sources being exploited, with the finest-grained preferred for adze manufacture. At Tahanga, the quarries mostly consisted of weathered boulders at, or largely exposed on, the ground surface. Sources from the slopes of Tahanga Mountain were the most heavily utilized, along with beach sources alongside Opito Bay, which would have provided boulders, cobbles and blocks. Material from a smaller hill to the east of Tahanga was used only to a limited extent.
Geochemical tests have identified six sub-sources spread over an extensive area, measuring some 1.5 km x 1.3 km. The sub-sources are i) Tahanga Mountain, ii) a ridge south of Tahanga, iii) a hill east of Tahanga, iv) a conical hill at the eastern end of Opito Bay beach, v) a spur truncated by Opito Bay beach, and vi) large basalt blocks in the intertidal zone. This work, reported on by Felgate et al in 2001, opens up the possibility of sourcing artefacts made of Tahanga basalt to one of these particular areas. The testing of adzes from Houhora, for example, has indicated that they were from sub-sources i) and vi). More widespread testing of adzes from other sites has the capacity to refine distribution patterns for Tahanga products, and may shed light on chronological development within the exploitation of different parts of the Tahanga site. Further analysis from Tahanga itself could yield information on the internal movement of material within the site, assisting knowledge of organisation and process. All six of the identified sub-sources are included inside the registration boundaries.
As most of the stone was exposed on the ground surface, little physical effort to extract the raw material was generally required. An exception may be a lava flow in the inter-tidal zone, which bears signs of conchoidal fracture for the removal of raw material. This was evidently used until the resource was exhausted. In general, the stone was subsequently shaped and trimmed on working floors to produce roughed out adze blanks. Working floors typically accumulated material from various stages of the process, including broken rough outs and reject pieces, and the hammerstones used to help shape the blanks. Variability in the quality of stone influenced the end product and often required special techniques. Archaeological analysis of waste debris has focused on how adzes were made, how their form was influenced by the material, which techniques were employed, and in what form the material left the quarry.
A large number of working floors were employed at Tahanga, two of which have been investigated in more detail by archaeologists. Three excavations were carried out on a large area of debitage on the northern slopes of Tahanga Mountain (T10/400) between 1962 and 1965. The other site (T10/459) was investigated by Kronqvist in 1990 to the south of Tahanga. Preforms were transported to a number of places up to 60 km away for further processing and finishing. ‘Finishing centres’ have been identified at many locations, from nearby Opito and Ahuahu (Great Mercury Island) to Whitianga, Hahei and Mt Maunganui. The quantity of flakes at some sites suggests that such work may have extended beyond that required for local use. Flakes were utilised for tools other than adzes, such as drill points, cutters, scrapers and awls.
Adze forms and distribution:
It has been demonstrated that Tahanga basalt and Nelson meta-argillite are the two most common stone types used to produce the distinctively early - and New Zealand-wide - ‘side hafted’ adze form. The adzes created at Tahanga were also characterized by their gripped quadrangular form. These differ from adzes produced elsewhere in the North Island at a later date, which were generally ungripped. Some experts have considered that the earlier gripped adzes were more effective for canoe production, while later types indicate a greater emphasis on activity linked to land clearance and the construction of defensive structures, being more useful for timber felling.
Similarities between the form of early adzes such as those produced at Tahanga and those from Eastern Polynesia suggests direct contact between New Zealand and other Pacific communities. These may even have been of an ongoing nature, with some reverse influence from this country to other islands. The gripped side-hafted adze form, for example, is uniquely shared between New Zealand and Pitcairn Island, as well as a spade-shouldered form. It has been noted that comparison of technology and adze styles with quarries elsewhere in the Pacific is ‘important both for studies of Polynesian material culture change, and the development and transfer of ideas and technology through different island groups over time.’
Comparisons closer to home may also indicate contact and the cross-fertilisation of ideas between different groups within New Zealand. For the first few hundred years of human settlement, Tahanga was one of only two main stone sources in the North Island. The distribution of Tahanga adzes from Hawkes Bay in the south to the Aupouri Peninsula in the north potentially provides valuable information about patterns of trade or exchange. The indications are that long-distance contact in the early period gradually diminished, with later distribution becoming more localised until the production of adzes from Tahanga basalt effectively ceased as a major operation, perhaps during the sixteenth century. The reasons for this are unclear, although by this time new forms of adzes were being produced in other centres using different stone and production techniques, notably bruising and grinding rather than flaking.
Subsequent use of the site:
In later centuries, after the importance of the quarry had waned, settlement in the immediate vicinity continued, and easily defended places such as the summit of Tahanga Mountain were turned into fortified pa. Remains dating to the later period indicate a small population, periodically under threat from their neighbours, who made a living by fishing, gathering shellfish, gardening on the lower ridges and flats, and exploiting the resources of the sea, forests and wetlands in the vicinity. The quarries at Tahanga continued to be exploited as a source of local material, but without the same skill in flaking that is evident in the earlier period. Evidence for limited ongoing exploitation may include the presence of stone flakes on the top of Tahanga Mountain, which are probably associated with the pa site. It has been stated that the products of large quarries in New Zealand did not travel as far as previously in this later period, although the quarries themselves continued in use until the eighteenth century. Archaeological investigations at Opito indicate that Tahanga basalt continued to be used locally into the 1700s.
During this period and later, the traditional occupants of Tahanga, Ngati Hei, were considerably affected by successive incursions into the Coromandel peninsula. An early nineteenth-century battle with Ngapuhi at Matapaua (Peys Bay), immediately to the south of Tahanga, led to the death of a notable Ngati Hei leader, Pereki Awhiowhio. It has been considered that fortified pa in the Rama Rama and Puhiwai Blocks - respectively to the west and south of Tahanga - were utilised until the mid 1800s, and formed refuges for Ngati Hei during conflict with other iwi. In 1853, Ngati Hei continued to occupy a settlement close to the site, at Te Raupuha, Matapuaua.
The eastern end of the Kuaotunu Peninsula, including Tahanga Mountain and Te Raupuha, have been considered to represent the turangawaewae of Ngati Hei following the conflicts of the early nineteenth century.
Late nineteenth- and twentieth-century history:
In November 1860, the Crown purchased the Opito Block incorporating much of the site at Tahanga. The Puhiwai Block, containing the southern remainder of the site, passed to the Crown at a similar time although a claim lodged by Peneamene Tanui in 1883 stated that it was not included in the same sale. As a prominent feature, the top of Tahanga Mountain marked the boundary between the two blocks. The summit was the site of a Trig Station employed in the early survey of the area by Charles Clayton.
The formal transfer of land from the Crown to European settlers began in 1878, when land on the northern slopes of Tahanga adjoining Opito Bay was granted to John Bunyan Ferguson, described as a farmer of Mercury Bay. Centred on the basalt outcrop adjoining the beach, the eastern part of Ferguson’s grant was surveyed in August 1877, shortly after he had applied for land at Opito Bay for the purposes of establishing a fishing station. In 1879, his property was transferred to Hugh Ferguson, Master Mariner. The remainder of the site at Tahanga remained in Crown hands until well into the twentieth century.
In 1917, Ferguson’s land was purchased by Isabella Stewart, wife of John Stewart, farmer. A road through the property was gazetted the following year, allowing direct access from the beach to the eastern slopes of Tahanga Mountain. Stewart obtained further land on the western flanks of the mountain from the Crown in 1925, shortly before her holdings were sold to another farmer, William Parsons Thompson, who had leased the remainder of the mountain - including the summit - from the Crown since at least 1913. Thompson’s farm was evidently a marginal enterprise in which vegetation was burnt off to graze cattle and sheep.
Subsequent owners catered for increasing recreational interest in the bay by subdividing land immediately to the west of the site beside Opito Beach for the construction of holiday homes. Seasonal camping also took place close to the foreshore in the eastern part of the site between the late 1950s and early 1990s. The farm supported a herd of purebred Cashmere goats which was added to by further stock imported from Australia, and is said to have been the largest in New Zealand at the time. Some quarrying of modern date occurred within the site, on the eastern slopes of Tahanga Mountain.
The archaeological value of the site was not immediately recognised when groundbreaking work by Jack Golson was undertaken at nearby Sarah’s Gully in the 1950s. Recognition of the archaeological significance of Tahanga dates from the early 1960s, since when the area has been the subject of many surveys, excavations and other investigations. Work from the 1970s to the 1990s particularly advanced knowledge of the site and its importance. Many prominent members of the archaeological community have been involved, generating a considerable body of research. Ngati Hei have considered that the reputation and durability of the tools made from Tahanga basalt have added greatly to the mana and wellbeing of Ngati Hei.
In the 1990s, two residential dwellings were constructed on land close to the Opito Bay foreshore, which has been excluded from the registration due to modification of the landscape at that time. More extensive development has occurred in Opito township, including on previously significant archaeological sites close to the foreshore. As these sites are also considered to have been largely destroyed, this area has been similarly excluded. Extensive tree planting occurred on the lower slopes of Tahanga in 1997.
Most of the land is currently in private ownership, and is employed for both pastoral and forestry use.
Most of the land is currently in private ownership, and is employed for both pastoral and forestry use.
