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Wednesday, April 4th, 1990. Rumors of recent tilling at the TIIRUA Site meant that the bones would have to wait whilst I investigated at long last these rich deposits. I arrived somewhat late however as a second fine tilling had already taken place. This pre-planting phase had not yet been washed by sufficient rain to expose many artifacts, still I managed to find a number of flake tools as well as one or two important adze fragments, which I hope to illustrate in the very near future, one of the fragments was a medium sized rectangular blade tip, well ground and polished. This fragment is very rectangular without a significant difference between the back or front widths, the back is not so thoroughly ground and shows some signs of pecking although other chipping scars demonstrate clean edges. There is a considerable amount of patination and some calcium deposits however the well polished surfaces retain a light reflecting shine. Thus it will be hazardous to speculate upon the age of this specimen however I suspect that it falls into the early 1A period. Similar rectangular adzes have been found in early Hawaiian sites. Other objects recovered includes a Fusinus-shell drill (bringing the total known collection to about 5 for all of Tubuai), various shell scrapers and fragments of human bone which includes part of a mandible (small) and skull fragments. The bone fragments were scattered over a wide area about 10-20 meters from the road, and probably derive from deep deposits which were disturbed by the initial ploughing last year. A number of small pearl-shell fragments were also recovered however the lack of branch coral files or Terebra -shell chisels is worth noting. Of the adze fragments, a number were large pecked fragments that seem closer related to 3A than to 3F, one well made shallow triangular blade tip was recovered, this was well ground on the front however the bevel was unfinished (unground) but well formed with the aid of extensive pecking. All of the above is rather premature however considering that a great majority of the artifacts will not be found until after the first heavy rainfall. Only one hammerstone was recovered and it was found with a number of other tools, scrapers and flakes next to the remains of the Marae where there once existed the structure detailed by Jean Duday (see Candelot Report II ETUDE DU SITE TIIRUA #1 and #2. Sept. 81-Feb. 82) this would seem to confirm the possibility that this structure was in fact a habitation site. Unfortunately the structure (TIIRUA *2) has been completely destroyed with most of the stones piled onto the adjacent structure (TIIRUA *1) which has also suffered considerably and is no longer in a recognizable form, fortunately both structures were well mapped previously by Jean Duday. |
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