Jack Golson, Roger Green and debates in New Zealand archaeology
Harry Allen
A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Honorary Research Fellow, Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland 1010, New Zealand. Email: h.allen@auckland.ac.nz
This article is part of a forthcoming virtual issue to be titled ‘Histories of archaeology in Australasia and the Pacific’, an initiative of the ARC Laureate Fellowship project ‘The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific: a hidden history’, based at the Australian National University under the direction of Matthew Spriggs.
Historical Records of Australian Science 31(2) 127-136 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR20002
Published: 19 June 2020
Abstract
Discussion in settler New Zealand concerning the Maori past has gone on for more than 150 years. To a large extent, archaeological approaches to this issue date only to the arrival of Jack Golson, a Cambridge-trained archaeologist, at the University of Auckland in 1954. He was joined shortly afterwards by Roger Green from Harvard. Debates between Golson and Green, bringing both European and American approaches to bear within a culture historical framework, have been influential. Their work and subsequent critiques are reviewed, along with an assessment of how New Zealand archaeologists currently interpret the archaeological record of change and development within Maori culture.
Additional keywords: adaptation, Archaic, Classic, cultural resource management, isolation, Maori, Moa-hunter, oral history.
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