Auckland archaeologist and heritage expert Dave Veart tells the history of New Zealand through food and toys in his books First Catch Your Weka and Hello Girls and Boys!
1. Does New Zealand have much history to dig up?
New Zealanders are often surprised by the fact that we have a history. Peter Wells describes us as an 'ahistorical society'. We exist in a sort of bubble of the present. It's always intrigued me that we don't encourage interest in our history. What's unique about New Zealand is that it's the last major piece of land on the planet to be settled by humans. We're at the end of a huge millennial experiment of colonising the planet and you can still clearly see what happened from the arrival of the first Maori and then with large scale European settlement.
2. What's the most interesting dig you've seen?
There was an excavation in Devonport when they were building a carpark for the new naval museum. It was a tiny site that contained the whole sequence of human settlement in New Zealand. The first layer of hangi had clay pipe stems from people sitting around, post-European settlement, having a smoke and chucking their broken pipes into the fire. Under that were more hangi. Then there was a tsunami event, possibly the eruption of Rangitoto. Under that was another hangi where people were eating moa. It just goes to show, a great place to live is a great place to live whether it's 500 years ago or last week. Location, location, location.
3. If you had a time machine, where would you go?
Auckland in the 18th century. You've got what has been called a proto-city with the largest concentration of Maori in New Zealand at the time. You've got the great rangatira moving from pa to pa, like the medieval kings and their courts. The big gardens are all functioning and there's widespread settlement. I'd like to go back and hover above it at a safe distance and see those gardens in action, the waka on the beaches, the big pa sites and their defences.
4. When did you first become interested in archaeology?
When I was 10 I was very ill in bed for three months with nothing to do but read. When I ran out of books my father gave me Gods, Graves and Scholars: the Story of Archaeology. I'm amazed that I ploughed through it - it's pretty dry. But at the time I thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do!' I was the first member of my family to actually go to university, I think, and in New Zealand in the 1960s archaeology wasn't a job that anyone had heard of, so I ended up doing law. I had one of the shortest legal careers in New Zealand. I managed 10 days. I really hated it.