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Wairau Bar Investigation Report

Summarise your findings from your investigation of the Wairau Bar site by completing the passage.

Instructions

Choose a word from the word list. Now select a space to drop the word into. Drag the word over the text to place it in the selected space. If you want to change a dropped word, click on the word to remove it and put it back in the word list.

south
adzes
bones
corpses
culture
extinct
fish
hangi
north
rarely
rocks
shape
status

Colonisation involves the settling of land that is uninhabited or lived in by only a few people. The site at Wairau Bar in the ( _______________ ) Island gives us an idea of how New Zealand was first colonised. The first settlers were mainly hunters and collectors who stayed in an area only while the food supply was good. Therefore they ( _______________ ) had permanent homes.

The huge number of moa ( _______________ ) and eggs that were found at Wairau Bar would suggest that it was a camp set up for hunters of the now ( _______________ ) species. The recovery of many ( _______________ ) , or their parts, shows that the site was also used as a butchery.

But moa was not the only source of food. The location of the camp at the ( _______________ ) end of the sand bar was perfect for catching the plentiful supply of ( _______________ ) and other birds. The food was then cooked in the ovens, or ( _______________ ) as the Maori called it. This involved the slow cooking of food using wood, kindling and ( _______________ ) .

The burial grounds at Wairau Bar give us an insight into the ( _______________ ) of the first New Zealanders. Buried alongside the bodies would be items such as necklaces or adzes which would indicate the ( _______________ ) or position in society of the deceased.

The east-west lying of the ( _______________ ) at Wairau Bar is a feature shared by the islanders of Eastern Polynesia. Other similarities have also been observed, like the ( _______________ ) of tools. With this evidence, archaeologists now believe that Eastern Polynesia was the homeland of the Maori’ ancestors.

Solution

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