THE MAORI ADZE: AN EXPLANATION FOR CHANGE

For many years the study of stone adzes has been an important aspect of archaeological research in the Pacific. The reasons are clear: the adzes, having been a necessary part of Polynesian life, are numerous, contain a great deal of information for the culture-historian, and are extremely durable, often the only aspect of material culture that survives. In New Zealand, over 200 years has elapsed since the first Maori artefacts reached European hands. In 1912 Elsdon Best's comprehensive description of most of the adze forms present in New Zealand was published,* however, Best made little attempt at classification, and made no mention of location. In 1938 and 1943 Skinner developed the first formal classification system, grouping the adzes of the southern half of the South Island into 10 types and 7 varieties/2) Sixteen years later, Duff(3) set up a typology which described adzes of any Polynesian group; in so doing he rearranged Skinner's categories into 5 types and 15 varieties. Since then only Simmons(4) has proposed an alternative typology, con taining 22 forms, in an attempt to include adze forms that were awkward fits in the previous typologies. Indicated in the above classifications, and recognised long before, is a basic division of all New Zealand adzes. Only one of Duff's and Skinner's varieties or Simmons' forms is needed to describe most of the adzes from the North Island; the remaining categories apply mainly to South Island adzes.