Construction Reveals Possible Maori Fortified Village

TARANAKI, NEW ZEALAND—A site that may be a pa, or Maori fortified village, was discovered on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island during a highway construction project. The pa may be Ketemarae, which was taken by imperial British Army troops in 1866 under Major-General Trevor Chute. “The project is on the border of where our ancient pa site was and so when they said they had found palisades there, well straight away I’m thinking there’s other things in the ground,” Clive Tongaawhikau, chair of Araukuuku hapu, a descent group, told Radio New Zealand. He explained that his ancestors may have hidden objects in the swamp when they were invaded, and that other remnants of ancestral housing have been found in the area. “We have had an archaeologist head out on site to have a preliminary look at the situation out there and her recommendation is there needs to be a little more testing to identify the extent of this and get an idea of what the site actually is,” commented Claire Craig of Heritage New Zealand. To read more about archaeology in the Pacific, go to "Letter From Hawaii: Inside Kauai's Past."