USUAL SKELETON

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 42, 28 July 1939, Page 5

USUAL SKELETON

DUG UP ON STRAND FIND ON BANK JOB The visual early 1 inhabitant of Whakatane was discovered during excava, tions for the foundations of the new Union Bank building on The Strand, when workmen on Wednesday uncovered the skeleton of an adult. The skull and larger bones were well preserved, but the ribs and bactc bone were rotten and fragile, and broke up when they were being re. moved from the .ground. As is usual with these relics the teeth were well worn down through the rough diet of fernroot, so that it may be mised that the Maori had attained a fair age at the time of his or her death. The skeleton was lying only a couple of feet from the surface on, a midden bed of fishbones. pip! and paua shells. It was surrounded by a black vegetable substance which may once have been a flax cloak, but possibly was burnt fern-stalk fragments . The fact that the body had been left on the Maori equivalent for ? rubbish heap might indicate that the person buried was of no particular consequence, though there were plenty of cases in Maori history where a body of an enemy chief slain in war was ceremonially cooked, though not eaten, in order to degrade him and his people for all time The fact that the skeleton was complete when uncovered indicates that it was not the remains of a banquet. No inter-sting finds in the way of greenstone or stone tools or weapons have been discovered in the foundation, work. though some whale bone was turned up. No doubt many relics would be uncovered if it were possible "to dig systematically, but that pleasure is reserved for archaelogists of coming generations when the next buildings are put up on the sites along The Strand. ■