Riverside dig unlocks more city secrets | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

Pipi shells, pig and fish bones, clay pipes and a bone button are helping reveal a piece of Wanganui’s past.

Thos signs of the city’s earliest settlement have been unearthed by archaeologists fossicking on a section of the Whanganui riverbank near Putiki.

Two middens - prehistoric household refuse tips - were discovered, late last month, by contractors working on the reconstruction of Putiki Drive.

Earthmoving stopped and an archaeological team led by Michael Taylor, of Archaeology North, moved in.

Excavation of one of the sites was completed nearly two weeks ago. Work on the second site was delayed by rain but the archaeologists have been busy at the cliff face a little further downriver for the past two days.

Up to yesterday finds included a haangi pit, with historic food waste consisting mainly of pipi shells, with a few scallops, mud-snails, bones from large shark and snapper and broken pig bones.

There was also a fishing sinker, fragments of clay tobacco pipes and a button, indicating that the site dated from a time after Europeans had arrived but before the town of Petre or Wanganui was established.

Above the Maori occupation layer was 1.5m of fill used to build the road, including a piece of original totara kerbing.

Mr Taylor said an 1856 newspaper account had the road being cut by a team of Maori, to bring it to a ferry station opposite Victoria Ave.

“From the 1860s the Cobb stagecoach departed from the Red Lion Inn with passengers who had been ferried across the Whanganui River before the city bridge was constructed,” he said.

Mixed in with the fill used to build up the road were broken pieces of historic artefacts including fragments of china from plates, pieces of bottles, rusted iron objects, and animal bones.

New Zealand Transport Agency regional manager Errol Christiansen said finding pre-1900 sites was always possible in historically rich areas like Wanganui.

The sites will eventually be destroyed by the road reconstruction but the archaeologists were recording any information before that happened.

Mr Christiansen said the agency was working with local iwi and the Historic Places Trust to follow the right processes. Material from the sites would be taken away for examination and artefacts would probably be given to a museum.

The excavation is expected to continue for another week.