[?]Ts Prehistoric

[?]Itcairn Gives Up

[?]Secrets

A party of six archaeologists

rom New Zealand’s University

if Otago has found evidence of irehistoric habitation at two ilaces on remote Pitcairn Island.

CHE archaeologists returned to New Zealand on February 24 fter spending 61 weeks on Pitcairn, laking the first intensive survey of le island’s pre-Bounty mutineer past.

Their expedition was sponsored y the Natural Science Foundation f the United States as part of a big ;search programme in Polynesia nder the general direction of Hono ilu’s Bishop Museum.

The expedition leader, Mr. P.

Jathercole, said in Wellington that vo habitation sites had been in estigated—one on the western side f the island and one near the resent-day settlement of Adams 3wn.

The site near Adamstown appeared 3 have had “an intensive occupa on”. Wooden structures had been uilt and probably rebuilt there, hellfish, small fish and pigs were aten, and the food had possibly been tored in pits.

At the other settlement, evidence •f buildings and a wide range of tone-working activities was found.

Tool-Manufacture Mr. Gathercole said it was fairly lear that the pr t-Bounty occupation if Pitcairn took two main forms, fhe evidence suggested that it had leen both a more or less permanent tome for the ancient Polynesians and i quarry that was visited from astern Polynesia for materials for tone tools.

Of overriding significance was the juarrying of a fine-grained basalt vhich was worked into adzes and )ther tools.

The expedition found evidence of 001-manufacture at many places, but he most dramatic site was a ‘factory” on the south coast where arge quantities of adze roughouts md possibly other tools were made.

The working area covered about wo acres. The ground there was ittered with thousands of flakes and

many cores, rejected roughouts, hammer stones and beach boulders which were apparently used as an vils.

The extent of the factory suggested it was the main attraction of Pitcairn for the pre-historic Polynesians.

During their stay on Pitcairn, the archaeologists were billeted with is land families. One of the men was Mr. Murray Howse, a former Education Officer on the island.

In a letter which he wrote to the island’s roneoed newspaper, Pitcairn Miscellany, during his stay, Mr, Howse said he had noticed a “most

alarming difference” since he left the island two years ago. This difference was the island’s much smaller popu lation.

Mr. Howse went on: “Even though this was inevitable to a certain degree with higher educational advancement of the younger folk and greater con tact with the outside by you all, a drop of nearly 40 per cent, in two years has resulted in a very difficult situation for the older people remain ing.

“This is more so when it is realised that it has been mainly the able bodied people who have left.”