New Zealand has some 6,000 earthwork fortifications, the product of widespread warfare in the pre-European period from about A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1800. In addition, Maori quickly adopted and developed aspects of gun warfare in the nineteenth century: as many as 600 fortified sites were built or adapted from pre-European types. The Maori word for these fortifications is “pa” (pronounced as in “Ma and Pa”). A typical fortification consists of an elevated section of a ridge with ditches at either end. Ditches may extend around the sides, and there may be more than one ditch. Another form is a headland or end of a ridge with a ditch or ditches across the narrowest access point. There are also many sites with storage pits, terraced housefloors and horticultural plot boundaries that show well from the air. The aerial photographs in this compendium are low oblique (near vertical) or vertical images taken by Kevin L. Jones. Copyright©1997 Kevin L. Jones/New Zealand Department of Conservation is asserted.

For further information, contact Kevin Jones at Department of Conservation, PO Box 10 420, Wellington, New Zealand or refer to: 

Kevin L. Jones. Nga Tohuwhenua mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archaeology in Aerial Photographs. Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1994. ISBN 0 86473 268 6. For a review of New Zealand archaeological aerial photographs, see: Kevin L. Jones. The development of aerial photography in New Zealand archaeology. Aerial Archaeology Research Group News 13 (1996): 7-13 and 14 (1997): 13-22 (in two parts). For New Zealand archaeology in general see: Davidson, Janet M. The Prehistory of New Zealand. Auckland, Longman Paul, 1984. ISBN 0 582 71793 0 (This book is maintained in print.)