Haast. — Researches in Sumner Moa Cave. 71 



It is therefore interesting to observe that the Moa-himters were also 

 chasing the latter, as proved by the remains of Dinornis rohustus in the 

 kitchen middens at the mouth of the cave. 



In the sands at the western corner near its entrance, and where, as before 

 observed, the agglomeratic deposit was missing, we found arranged in the 

 sands another oven of considerable dimensions, used for a time by the Moa 

 hiTnters, but afterwards abandoned, as it was filled and covered over with 

 numerous Moa bones and their fragments, as well as with a considerable 

 thickness of dirt and ashes. 



The absence of ovens for cooking purposes, with the exception of the one 

 previously alluded to occurring in the marine sands in the south-western por- 

 tion, and of the second at the western entrance of the cave, together with a 

 third — of which I shall speak presently — is a striking feature from which we 

 can only conclude that the Moa-hunters cooked their food generally out- 

 side, and only occasionally eat it inside the cave, whilst the thick ash bed 

 suggests that generally fires had been lighted, round which they sat or 

 camped. 



The third oven — several feet in diameter — was found about 10 feet from 

 the entrance .towards its middle part, having been prepared immediately after 

 the agglomeratic bed had been deposited. 



The Moa-hunters had broken through that latter deposit, and arranged the 

 stones of their oven, taken mostly from the removed agglomerate in the marine 

 sands thus laid open. 



After having been used probably in a few instances only, it had become 

 filled up with some of the agglomerate, previously disturbed for its excavation, 

 not used for cooking purposes, with pieces of Moa bones and chips of timber 

 (totara). Some of the latter were standing vertical, or at least at a high angle, 

 whilst the chips amongst the dirt beds were found to be generally in a hori- 

 zontal position. 



This oven, with the kitchen middens filling it, was found to be covered by 

 the never missing ash and dirt bed, the latter being continuous with the same 

 deposit all round. 



It is thus evident that this oven w^as excavated, used and filled again with 

 the remnants of the meals, and of the usual occupations of the Moa-hunters 

 before the ash and dirt bed was formed above the agglomerate. On the bottom 

 of this oven a polished chisel of dark chert was discovered, 4-8 inches long 

 by 1-51 inches broad, which in its general form resembles those which are 

 doubtless of Maori manufacture, and which probably had been lost accidentally 

 by being covered over. I obtained the information concerning this oven from 

 the workmen, as I was unfortunately absent when the discovery was made. 



