Tuesday 13 January 2009 2:34pm
The archaeological investigations at Wairau Bar - one of the most significant prehistoric sites in New Zealand - will be open to the media on Friday (16 January) from 11am to 3pm.
Access will be via a boat across the Wairau River to the Wairau Bar. There will then be a tour of the excavation sites and access to the leaders of the archaeological team, Associate Professor Richard Walter and Chris Jacomb, and representatives of the local Rangitane iwi.
The main focus of the excavations is to find a suitable location for the April repatriation of human remains, removed and stored at Canterbury Museum in the 1940s and 1950s. However, the archaeological work (the first at the site in decades) is also uncovering priceless information about other aspects of the 700-year-old settlement, which is one of the earliest found in New Zealand.
All interested parties should meet at the jetty at the end of Wairau Bar Road, north of Blenheim, by 11am on Friday, in order to be ferried across to the site.
Background information can be obtained from the daily blog produced on location at Wairau Bar: www.wairaubar.com
For further information contact
Quinn Berentson
Email qberentson@yahoo.com
Website www.wairaubar.com
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