Preparing for final recording on the beach, February 2012
Eager to get back out to Ahuahu, a small group of us returned to the island in June to continue excavations not completed in February. The June crew consisted of Simon, Louise, Peter, Pete, Alex, Rod, Ben Davies, Ben Jones, Josh, Annelies and myself. In conditions that were significantly colder, rainier and windier than February, the focus of this dig was to complete the work begun on the beach front. In February the beach front had yielded a large cluster of haangi stone in addition to stone artefacts, and some faunal material, however, it wasn’t clear exactly what this area represented. Was it a rubbish dump filled with remains of haangi and stone working? Or was it an area people lived in? And if not, where might that be? We wanted to know if we could discern any clear features to account for the large numbers of haangi stones, but also the large numbers of stone artefacts and comparatively low number of bone and shell material.
Excavating in colder and wetter conditions on the beach, June 2012