This thesis describes the archaeology of the European military frontier in the province of Taranaki, New Zealand, in the years 1860-1881. In this period a series of four campaigns resulted in the expansion of European settlement at the expense of the indigenous Maori people. The First Taranaki War (1860-61) did not resolve the fundamental conflict over land and the imposition of British law. The passage of the New Zealand settlements Act in late 1863 brought European military strategy into line with political reality. Henceforth the land of 'rebel' tribes was to be confiscated, the military frontier providing a bulwark for an expanding European farming frontier. The Second Taranaki War (1863-66), the white Cliffs Scare (1869) and the Parihaka Campaign (1880-81) resulted in successive areas of Maori land in Taranaki being brought under European control. The present work is divided into two parts. In the first (Volume 1), the geography and archaeology of the European military effort in Taranaki is described; the fortifications and frontier organization are compared with those of earlier periods of imperial expansion elsewhere in the world, and the techniques employed in New Zealand are shown to be by no means unusual. The second part (Volume 2) reports the results of excavations at two European fortifications of the period. These serve to describe further the archaeology of the Taranaki frontier and also, through the recovered material culture, to demonstrate the dependent relation of the military frontier in New Zealand to the economies of the northern hemisphere.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/274761 |
| Date | January 1981 |
| Creators | Prickett, Nigel |
| Publisher | ResearchSpace@Auckland |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated., http://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm, Copyright: The author |
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