The Ōwhiro Middens

This account is adapted from an article in The New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, March 1918, entitled Shell-middens of the Wellington District by the famous ethnologist Elsdon Best. 

As always it is good to remember that Elsdon Best’s work was done long before modern methods of archeological and cultural research and that anything he says should be viewed in the light of later scientific literature. 

In his general comments the author makes the point that as conditions were unfavourable for extensive cultivation of the kūmara Maori populations were not large in the Wellington district, and the remains found in local middens are evidence that the people relied on fish rather than shellfish for their food supply.  They preferred, therefore, to live on or near the outer coastline for they knew well the best fishing grounds were outside Wellington Harbour. 

Two interesting middens formerly existed at the mouth of the Ōwhiro Stream, a short distance west of Island Bay, but both are now practically things of the past, owing to the attentions of sand-carters. On the western side of the stream are the scant remains of a talus midden, the natives having evidently lived on the spur above and thrown their refuse over the head of the steep bluff. [A talus midden is fan-shaped, and thicker at the base than at the top].

Sand-shovelling operations exposed the buried shells. On the eastern side of the little bay was another talus midden, as also a village-site. This has been one of the favoured places of residence in former times. Such refuse heaps naturally afford no evidence as to the vegetable-food supply of the natives who formerly occupied these hamlets, except in the case of large waterworn stones that were used as anvils for pounding roots on, the edible rhizome of the common fern or bracken. In these middens fish-bones were found to be numerous and bird-bones were also seen, as also part of a dolphin skull. Some types of shells were also numerous, including at least two very small types said to have been collected and eaten by children as a sort of 'tween-meals recreation.

Other objects found in these Ōwhiro middens were the jaw-bone of a dog, pieces of worked whales' bone and of pumice, and many sharp-edged flakes of greywacke showing marks of percussion. A stone hammer was also found, while waterworn oven-stones, many of them fractured by fire, were numerous. A diminutive and beautifully formed greenstone chisel was found in the midden on the western side of the creek.