Disposable Cutlery Archaeology Site

If you are pedalling through Oturehua on the Rail Trail or visiting Hayes Engineering Works, take a glance across the road toward 'North Rock Ridge' where there's a track to the Golden Progress Mine. What's not visible right now is a heritage site that dates back to the 12th Century, which provided a perplexing puzzle for the archaeologists who worked on it.

Starting in the 1960s, an extensive series of archaeological sites were discovered in the Ida Valley area which demanded further investigation. The main object of interest was 'silcrete flake' knives, but their construction was rough and not at all like the sophisticated polished tools Maori were using in the 1800s.

Digs led by Otago University and further research gradually converged upon a theory that the flinty knives were indeed roughly and hastily created, because they were simply disposable cutlery for feasting by early South Island hapu on their travels. It was established by radiocarbon dating that the feasts with the 'stone age plastic forks' took place as far back as the 12th Century, and the meals were probably Moa. The sites were abandoned and the parties moved on. Leaving 'prepared core prismatic blade workshops' at long lost picnic spots in what is now farmland. Hayes was not the first man to have a workshop here, and the Golden Progress was not the first mine.

A photo submission would be great.

Image Credit: Google Maps