THE SUMNER CAVE

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 362, 8 September 1874, Page 2

THE SUMNER CAVE

At a mooting of the Wellington Philo«ophical Society, Dr Hector rend an interesting paper on the Sumner Cave, Canterbury, by Mr A. McKnv, o( fhe geological department, who hnd mnde excavations there for Dr Haast in 1572. The New Zealand Times gives the following summary of tlie piippr : — The exploration occupied 6even weeks, and on its completion the collections and .notes which were mnrlo were given to Dr Ilaist, and the paper now read was chiefly occupied with the anihor'a own viewi on the question— whether tho moa huiters wero poses»ed of tools other than those of the rudest description ; and whether there were nny fad* constituting a diirprence between them and the Maoris of the latter time ? The cave, which has been excavated by the sea in a soft stratum between two hard layers of lavu rock, it now n long way from the sea shore, and itlthough careful measurements have shown that tUe sandy iloor of the cavo is oily a few fret above high-water mark, the accumulations of drift outside tho care have reached a much higher level. The louesfc dopositc in the cave wa* a levpl floor of sea sand, on tho surface of which lay a considernble quantity of drift wood ; coveiing this was a bed of hrecen formed by debris from tho roof of the cave and contain^ flocks oflargo size in some parts, especially t<> wnrda tho middle. Ihe care consists of three chambers of which tho outer is tlit largest, bring 100ft long, 74 feet wVde and from 12 to 25ft high, and the thickness of this breccia wns prentest where tic cave wns highest. This layer eonti»n«d grot- qunnutirs of bones of birds of jmnll sue, *c»l bones a few flint fluke-, and a piece of obsidian ; »n,l immediately underlying this bed, and six inches beneath tho sir fficc of the underlying sand, a human jnw and h,. c l bone wero found, «ud immodialely over the spot the trunk »f n seal that lyid rvidently been sti.-mdcd The existence of chat rod se^l bones and burnt dull wood protes that t!io

cuvc had been occupied by mon ut this eaily peri >il Owrlnng the breccia was a "dirt bed" containing charcoul, foments of nrta, matting, tools of wood and of stonp of huh polish and finish, together with mon bones and eggshells and tho remains of old cooking ovens. In one piirt the brei'iii hud been cleared a nay and a hut eroded: of winch the bults of three poafs stdl remain. A notable feature in the dirt bed was the üb^enco of marine shells, but overlying it was a bed composed almost entirely of shells varying in thickness from one to fivu feet. The uppermost layer of .ill consisted of decayed grass and fern leaves, in which European and Maori matoriiils were freely mixed. In the inner aud smaller caves both lire heap* and moa bones were found. .Excavations outride the cave showed an intermixture of polished stone implements mixed with moa and dog bones, bnt few or no shells. There appeared everywhere to be a clear division between the moa bone deposited and the overlying~sticll bed, indicating, no doubt, a long period which followed the extinction of the moi9 in the neighbourhood of the cave, during which the natives limited them in the more remote paits of thecouutry, but returning afterwards to subsist on shell-fish. Such n radical change ol food indicated a considerable lapse of time, during which the civs probably remained uninhabited. After discussing the r.-lative ago of the moa ovens at theßakaiaand elsewhere tho author conaidered the period of tho Sumner cave, to be the oldest. While the evidence obtained does not thow that tho moa huters were in any way different from the Maoris, he yet considered the period of the cave depositos as much moie remote than the traditional date of the first arrival of }ho maoria in J\ T ew Zealand- 330 years ago — aud thought thnfcprobablv 1350 years would be nenrer the mark- He considered the asserted absence of any traditional knowledge of tho moa amongst the Maoris showed that the moa was exterminated cither by a different race, or that the M«ons arrived at a date long prior to which their traditions extend.