Volume 3: Archaeology in the Hauraki Region: A Summary

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4: Stone And Minerals: page 46  (9 pages)
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Stone Resources and Minerals

FIGURE 14: FLAKED BASALT ADZES FROM WHIRITOA

shaping of many thousands of basalt adzes (Turner and Bonica 1994). Several caches of finished adzes have been found in early coastal sites, and demonstrate the fine flaking technology used to shape these tools (Fig. 14).

The adzes were produced in excess of the use requirements of the people making them and must therefore have been for trade. Collections of artefacts from a site at Houhora in the Far North contain many adzes of Tahanga basalt, but the main spheres of influence, where the majority of Tahanga adzes have been found, are the Auckland, Waikato and Hauraki a eas (Davidson 1981:109).

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