An Investigation of Prehistoric Diet and Economy on a Coastal Site at Galatea Bay, New Zealand

Abstract

The importance of attempting to reconstruct diet from a study of biological data from archaeological sites has been stressed by earlier workers, both in Britain and the United States. The present study is based on materials recovered from the excavation of a midden deposit at Galatea Bay, on an offshore island of the North Island of New Zealand, by Mr J. E. Terrell, whose complete report (No. 1) is to appear in the Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The site overlooks a sheltered area of sea from the mouth of a small and now dry valley (see pl. IX) and the excavation revealed an initial, specialized cooking area which was replaced by dumps of food waste and then abandoned. The most characteristic elements of the midden were marine shellfish valves and a much smaller quantity of vertebrate bones. However, the apparent frequency of the shellfish could not be taken as a sure guide to their importance over the vertebrate animals because the nature of the animals and their surviving evidence makes it impossible to directly compare them. Shellfish, though individually small, are found in large numbers and are thus best studied by means of estimating populations derived from samples. Vertebrate populations on the other hand can be measured by more direct means, though it must be recognized, as Mr Terrell points out, that such an excavation is itself only a sample. In his report Mr Terrell examined the effects of dehydration, size and sifting upon the shell samples and then compared the archaeological population with those of living shellfish, so enabling him to demonstrate the relative influence of natural and cultural causes on the archaeological population. These findings provide basic evidence which will be referred to during the course of the present paper.