This book in Pacific archaeology is the third to emerge from the Pouerua Project, a major archaeological initiative of the 1980s, studying the extensive pa (native village) site on and around the volcanic cone at Pouerua, Northland, New Zealand. Focusing on the pa itself, it explores the innovative attempt to use archaeological techniques to explore and understand socio-political processes. The investigation revealed the pa as a fluid site with different functions changing over time; not a place of permanent settlement but rather a visible sign of power and dominance. This book shouldl be of interest to scholars, students and amateur archaeologists and historians.

Author Biography

One author is UK based - Yvonne Marshall is at the University of Southampton; Furey and Sutton are on the staff of the University of Auckland. Louise Furey is a Research Archaeologist in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland and is an office holder of the New Zealand Archaeological Association. She has an MA in anthropology from the University of Auckland and has published papers and monographs on archaeology in New Zealand including Oruarangi: the Archaeology and Material Culture of a Hauraki Pa (Auckland Institute and Museum). Professor Douglas Sutton, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and currently the Dean of Arts, directed the Pouerua Project from its inception in the 1980s. He has edited companion volumes on the Pouerua Project, The Archaeology of the Kainga (AUP, 1990; 1994) and The Archaeology of the Peripheral Pa (AUP, 1993). He has published other books and many papers, including Origins of the First New Zealanders (AUP, 2nd imp, 1995). Dr Yvonne Marshall is at the Archaeology Department of the University of Southampton, England. She took her MA from the University of Auckland with a thesis on Pouerua, Antiquity, Form and Function of Terracing at Pouerua Pa, and has had a long involvement in Pacific archaeology.