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Finally I covered ATIAHARA #3 and #4 (452-312, 313) These two fields have produced a limited number of artifacts however a number of adze caches have been found here (mainly 4Aa) On #4 | had the good fortune to find a Terebra (crenulata) chisel (see Diagram 13.74), there is some blackened sand and perhaps very old midden (most shells almost fully decomposed) about 100 m from the road however few artifacts. While on #3 | found two interesting fishook fragments, the largest of which I shall Illustrate in Diagram 13.70. This is a quite large and very elegant fragment which is in itself an object of art. Sunday 15th of April, 1990. Today I covered again the ground at AHOA and ATIAHARA as there was such heavy rain that I thought there may be some chance of discovering a freshly uncovered hook, I was however not so fortunate, and note that heavy rain does not much alter sites that have been initially washed down by normal rainfall. I did however find a small Terebra shell chisel and adze fragments at AHOA as well as another Terebra chisel at ATIAHARA *5 which I had not searched previously since last year however there were very few artifacts here (after being farmed a number of times). Fishhhooks are by no means easy to find, although blanks and fragments are easily found at AHOA, the only hook fragment was a very rounded point tip fragment which from its relatively fat and curved nature must be from arather specific form. Terebra-shell chisels seem more common in this part of the island, although it may be that I am now much more alert to their presence. In the morning I spent a long while working on Diagram 13.70 and 71 as I wanted this fishhook fragment reproduced precisely. Tuesday 17th of April 1990 The day has been absorbed with artifact illustration and description similar to yesterday however I made one final toor of TIIRUA where after so much rain the fields have turned into muddy bogs. Still I managed to find another branch coral file and some porites coral in the location of the other file shown on the map, this suggests that this midden area is more like that of the richer VAIAUTEA deposits particularly the most southerly corner, with some pearl-shell fragments but as yet no hooks. The enclosed pentagonal area shown on the TIIRUA map is the rough location of the garden shed and has been used as a dump for stones collected from the field and may have also been a structure at (cont. page 65) |
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