A project to return ancestral remains to one of the earliest
sites of Māori settlement in New Zealand is providing a rich
source of data for researchers in the Departments of
Anthropology, and Anatomy and Structural Biology. The project
involved reburying koiwi tangata (human remains) excavated by
Canterbury Museum from the 1930s to the 1960s from Wairau Bar
near Blenheim. A team led by Associate Professor Richard Walter
was appointed archaeological consultants for the project, with
the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology's Dr Hallie
Buckley co-ordinating biological anthropology analysis of the
skeletal remains. Before the reburial took place in April this
year, the archaeology team – comprising members of the
Anthropology Department's Southern Pacific Archaeological
Research Unit – conducted a detailed survey and excavation at
the site. "Our role was to find the appropriate places for them
[koiwi] to be reburied, but, at the same time, to carry out
research-based excavation," explains Walter, adding