Ancient site · Settlement
Wairau Bar
Wairau Bar, a gravel bar at the mouth of the Wairau River in Marlborough, New Zealand, is one of the earliest known settlements in the country. Explorers from East Polynesia arrived here about 1280, and refined radiocarbon dating puts the village at about 1288–1300 CE.
Graves held whole moa eggs used as water carriers, necklaces of moa bone, argillite adzes and other ornaments of East Polynesian style, showing that the first settlers hunted these giant flightless birds. Studies of the skeletons and their DNA give a rare picture of the founding population.
- Dates
- settled c. 1288–1300 CE (later than this atlas's ancient period)
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 41.50° S, 174.05° E
How we know
No writing existed; the settlement is dated by radiocarbon, and DNA and isotope studies of the burials add detail.
Nearby sites
- Lapita type site (Site 13, Foué) dated to c. 800 BCE
- Nukuleka founded c. 888 BCE; occupied for about 250 years
- Teouma c. 1100–900 BCE (about 3,000 years old)
- Budj Bim eel traps from at least c. 4600 BCE (6,600 years ago)
- Kuk Swamp drainage from c. 7000 BCE (about 9,000 years ago)
- Nan Madol megalithic building from c. 1180–1200 CE; capital until c. 1628 (later than this atlas's ancient period)