Ōtautahi Christchurch’s archaeology begins with the settlement of this land by Waitaha, descendants of the explorer Rākaihautū who arrived in the waka Uruao. Waitaha were followed by Ngāti Mamoe in the late 16th/early 17th centuries, who essentially took over through a process of intermarriage and warfare. Ngāi Tahu followed in the early-mid 17th century. Both oral history and archaeological evidence record the presence of all three iwi in and around the place we now know as Ōtautahi Christchurch. Archaeological evidence indicates that early Māori occupation was concentrated around the beaches of Te Raekura/Redcliffs, but Māori archaeological sites have been found throughout the city – which is not at all surprising, given what oral traditions tell us about Māori use of this landscape. For more information about this, check out Ngāi Tahu’s atlas.

There’s not the space here to dive deep into Aotearoa’s early colonial history and what led to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Suffice is to say, Ngāi Tahu signed this in 1840. In 1848, Henry Kemp, acting on behalf of the Crown, purchased 13.5 million acres from Ngāi Tahu. Under the terms of the purchase – known as Kemp’s deed or purchase – Ngāi Tahu were supposed to have all their mahinga kai areas set aside as reserves, as well as schools and hospitals. Instead, just 6359 acres were reserved for them. You can read more about Ngāi Tahu’s long fight – it began in 1849 – for justice here. One of the practical implications of Kemp’s deed was to shut Ngāi Tahu out of the new city of Christchurch. This is why there is very little – if any – recorded archaeological evidence of Ngāi Tahu in the city from the time Europeans arrived. It’s not the case that Ngāi Tahu were not in the city after this time (they helped early European settlers build houses, they traded at Market (now Victoria) Square, they camped in Little Hagley Park), it’s just that we’ve not yet found any archaeological evidence of this.

Europeans began arriving in this part of the world in the 1840s, with quite an influx late in the period as the Canterbury Association really got the process of colonisation underway. Much of the early Canterbury Association activity was concentrated in Lyttelton and we’ve found some evidence of that, including the remains of the house Charlotte and John Godley lived in while they were here. But archaeology of this early period of European settlement, or even the 1850s and 1860s, is not nearly as common as archaeological sites from the later part of the 19th century. That’s partly because occupation was more sparse then and the population of the city was low (in modern terms, it probably qualified as little more than a village), and partly because it has been damaged or destroyed by later activity.

And what do we find, in terms of this archaeology? Well, everything. We’ve found evidence of landscape modification, of early roads, of bridge construction, lots of drains and long drop pits and wells, tramways, shops and other businesses, churches, schools, factories, houses, stables, hotels, and all the places people liked to bury their rubbish… Another important dimension of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s archaeology (well, actually, the archaeology of anywhere in Aotearoa) is that standing buildings built before 1900 are considered to be archaeological sites too, meaning we get to record them – photographs, measurements, samples, drawings – before and during their demolition. These are another really important component of the city’s archaeological record.