Oamaru

Oamaru is the largest metropolis in North Otago, within the South Island of New Zealand; it is the primary town within the Waitaki District. It is eighty kilometres 50 mi south of Timaru and a hundred and 20 kilometres north of Dunedin at the Pacific coast; State Highway 1 and the railway Main South Line connect it to both cities. With a populace of 13,950, Oamaru is the 28th biggest urban area in New Zealand, and the 0.33 biggest in Otago in the back of Dunedin and Queenstown. There are some crucial archaeological websites round Oamaru. Those at the Waitaki River mouth and at Awamoa each date from the Archaic Moa-hunter phase of Maori subculture, whilst New Zealand's human populace clustered along the south-east coast from approximately AD 1100.

The Waitaki River mouth had as a minimum 1,two hundred ovens. Awamoa saw the primary archaeological excavation in New Zealand when W.B.D. Mantell dug there at Christmas 1847 and in 1852. Smaller Archaic web sites exist at Cape Wanbrow and at Beach Road in primary Oamaru. The distinctive Archaic art of the Waitaki Valley rock shelters dates from this era some of it possibly made by using the occupants of those websites. The vicinity additionally features Classic and Protohistoric web sites, from after about AD 1500, at Tamahaerewhenua, Tekorotuaheka, Te Punamaru, Papakaio and Kakanui.