ARCHAEOLOGY

Darran sharing some kōrero about the repatriation of all tāonga tuturu during a special ceremony at Takahanga Marae.

Protecting Māori archaeology on the Kaikōura coast

Lead cultural monitor, Darran Kerei-Keepa, and archaeology team director, Jeremy HabberfieldShort, reflect on the challenges and innovations from their time on the NCTIR Kaikōura rail and road project.

WORDS: Rosemary Baird IMAGES: Waka Kotahi and DrJeremy Habberfield-Short

The 7.8 magnitude November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake twisted, cracked and eroded the rail and roading networks along the east coast of the South Island. Repairs were essential, but in this area rich with sites connected to 800 years of Māori and European occupation, care had to be taken. As recently as 2005, road and rail works have damaged Māori archaeological sites and the North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery alliance (NCTIR) needed to proceed in a genuine partnership with local iwi and archaeologists. Darran Kerei-Keepa has been a cultural monitor in Kaikōura for over 20 years. Before workling with the NCTIR he knew of urupa, cave burials and wāhi tapu along the coast.

One such site was a urupa in Waipapa underneath the road and rail tracks. After discussion with whānau and cultural monitors, it was decided to uplift the kōiwi. “It was a big decision for us but since the 1930s we've had cars and trains driving over the urupa so we thought we'd move it into a much safer area,” says Darran. A complication was that the road needed to reopen over the summer holiday period. “We had just exposed the surface of the burial ground, and then we had to cover it up again,” says Jeremy. “The engineers came up with a way to fill the open ground with geogrid and crush dust to protect the site from the traffic vibrations.” With summer over, the

burials were reinterred, along with their grave goods, on a neighbouring piece of land, which was redesignated as the urupa. Cultural and spiritual safety were vital during the urupa project, Darran explains. “The people we were lifting up lived in a time of tapu; we needed to recognise that and keep ourselves safe.” Cultural monitors held regular karakia during the excavation. “It was quite an emotional time for the archaeologists because they understood the significance of what they were doing,” says Darran. The cultural monitors also spent hours sharing their knowledge with the work teams. Darran attended countless 6am toolbox meetings to talk about cultural safety. One innovation was to show digger and truck drivers a box of exemplar Māori artefacts.

Many worker's attitudes changed due to the cultural monitors' input. “By the end of the project we'd have people coming to us saying, ‘Weird things are happening with the machinery at our site (which was near a burial). Can you come and do a karakia?’” says Darran. “Some of the taonga we now hold are because digger drivers were really attentive. We've got some amazing adzes that fell off the back of the truck and they spotted them.” As the project progressed, the archaeologists and rūnanga increasingly influenced the design process to avoid archaeological sites. “Under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga 2014 Act the first step should be avoidance, not mitigation,” says Jeremy. For much of the coastline construction, the workers would find the margins of sites, and be able to avoid them.

As Te Runanga o Kaikōura continued to push back on designs that impacted cultural sites, NCTIR engineers started to kōrero with iwi and hapū earlier in the process. “There's been a lot of learning from both KiwiRail and Waka Kotahi. We hope they will take that forward in future works, to talk with iwi early on about how to avoid damaging wāhi tapu and wāhi tūpuna,” says Darran. One of the most innovative aspects of the NCTIR project has been the repatriation of taonga tūturu (objects that relate to Māori culture, history and society that are over 50 years old) to the wharenui at Takahanga. Waka Kotahi, KiwiRail and Te Rūnagana o Ngāi Tahu gave funds to build a Whare Taonga, which was due to open in late 2021. Another building will hold the Mātauranga Māori collection of the bird bones, fish bones, soil samples and pollen samples. “We now have a storage and research space so that future archaeologists can study the collection on our marae rather than taking it away,” says Darran. “So often artefacts end up in a museum, or in someone's cupboard or garage. To keep the integrity and the wholeness of the collection is a really fantastic outcome,” says Jeremy. Both Darran and Jeremy hope that the lessons from NCTIR can be applied to other construction and roading projects around Aotearoa New Zealand. “It's been a great learning experience for a lot of people,” says Jeremy. n

NGĀ KUPU

Urupa burial site or cemetery Wāhi tapu place sacred to Māori Wāhi tūpuna place important to Māori for ancestral significance and cultural and traditional values

Kōiwi human remains

Whare Taonga treasure house/ museum

Tapu sacred, restricted, set apart Karakia prayer Mātauranga Māori Māori knowledge

Cultural monitors and archaeologists sharing a special moment in front of Takahanga Marae. Box of artefacts used as a portable training tool for construction workers.