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By Jonathan Carpenter, Senior Archaeologist, Geometria
I grew up in Mangawhai in the shadow of the Moir Homestead and Chief Te Whai’s pā, at a time when it was populated mostly by farmers, burnouts and hippies, along with the odd witch or two. The bus trip to school was 30-40 minutes over bone jarring gravel roads because the nearest stop was at Suffolk Street, at the start of the run.
The Markwicks ran the Foursquare, the Jims (Wintle and Smith) seemingly had a hand in everything, and the Hallelujah Sisters owned the back pew at the inter-denominational (now Causeway) church. Jo Hastie mimeographed the Mangawhai Memo and Hugh Alexander, up behind Mangawhai Central, cooked the best crackling when he did a roast. The tip at what is now Grove Street was the perfect place to ping rats with a slug gun, and find discarded MAD Magazines and other useful junk to delight a 10-year-old. Last year I helped my mum pack up her house in the village after 40 years, as she headed off on a new adventure in the South Island at the age of 77.
In between, I went to university, studied archaeology, and have now been employed in that diverse and fascinating field for more than 25 years. My last “regular” job was pumping gas at the village BP in the summer of 1998.
So it was with great sadness that my colleagues and I, assisting Kaipara District Council with the new carpark at Alamar Crescent in May were subjected to verbal abuse by passers-by apparently as a result of a story published in the Mangawhai Focus, which reported Kaipara councillors blaming us for delays and a $170,000 budget blow out. Since that poorly informed Council meeting, I have had the privilege of talking about archaeology in New Zealand with half the elected members who were willing to listen. Now, the Focus has offered me a chance to put the record straight to residents as well.
Firstly, archaeological sites – Māori, pakeha, Chinese, Dalmatian or whatever – have been protected from unauthorised damage or destruction for longer that I have been alive. They were first protected in the old Historic Places Act of 1975, now the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014. The planning and permitting (or “archaeological authority”) process for archaeological sites has been in place since 1993. Our archaeology is ours, and it is special and unique. It is the physical record of the exploration and occupation of Earth’s last great continental land mass, discovered after an epic human journey out across the Pacific that took place over thousands of years. It reflects great change occurring in short order as first Polynesians, and then Europeans, adapted to life in a new environment. If you are interested you can find out all about archaeology, protections and the authority process www.heritage.org.nz/archaeology.
KDC was aware of the site at Alamar Crescent, and their obligations to it, in late 2021 but staff, project management and contractor churn appear to have resulted in communications failures, leading to a standdown in May of this year. Most of the costs from that standdown are not attributed to the archaeology, but the South-Auckland based contractor excavated being put on hold. The archaeological costs are significantly less than a quarter of the headline figure, and include costs accrued from the first stage of the work in 2022.
It is a matter of fact that Mangawhai is an archaeologically sensitive area. There are many sites in the area, particularly near the coast, and on the volcanic soils of the Tara. Anyone who wishes to look up sites in their area can visit the public map viewer maintained by the New Zealand Archaeological Association at nzaa-archsite.hub.arcgis.com.
Just as Mangawhai is a desirable location to live and holiday now, so it was 5-600 years ago, as attested by radiocarbon dating of ovens beneath the Alamar Crescent toilet block in 2022. The most recent work at the carpark revealed an extensive midden deposit with multiple fire places, flaked stone tools of non-local obsidian (volcanic glass), and a stone slab-sided hearth.
The chiefs Arama Karaka and Paikea Te Hekeua welcomed European settlers to the Kaipara 175 years ago, and gave them every assistance to establish themselves, in a land they had enjoyed for many hundreds of years. Today, their descendants Te Uri o Hau, who have mana whenua over the area, are unfailingly helpful and responsive when some of their ancestral sites have to make way for modern needs. But there is a cost, and there is a process.
It is a shame that some of the current inhabitants of Mangawhai wish to ignore the history of this special place, and the evidence of it just beneath their feet.
