﻿6 8 Transactions. — Miscellaneo us . 



Palseolithic period belonged those oldest inhabitants who used only flint and 

 stone implements roughly chipped, without any attempt to polish them. 2nd. 

 To the Neolithic, those who had already advanced a considerable step in art, 

 and whose stone implements of well selected forms were more or less finely 

 polished. 3rd. The Bronze age included those nations who used bronze 

 implements. And lastly — 4th. The Iron age, those who, after the intro- 

 duction of iron, almost exclusively employed this ore for the manufacture of 

 their weapons and tools. Europe has been for many centuries in the last- 

 mentioned age, whilst New Zealand at the time of the arrival of the 

 Europeans was only in the neolithic period, or that of polished stone imple- 

 ments, but there is ample evidence that the palseolithic period, and with it a 

 people most probably belonging to a different race from the present native 

 inhabitants of these islands, had passed away together with the different 

 Dinornis species, long before the Maoris settled here. I shall endeavour to 

 prove these propositions by laying before you the main evidence I have been 

 able to collect, but I shall give you only the general results, leaving for some 

 other occasion all the details in proof of my hypothesis, for which drawings, 

 sections, and maps are necessary. 



Our first step must be to inquire what geological evidence we have of the 

 age of the Moa, or Dinornis, because if we are able to settle that important 

 point satisfactorily, the age of the moa-hunting population, of which I shall 

 speak more fully in the sequel, is also fixed with the same degree of certainty, 

 Moa bones occur first in beds which have been formed during the glacier 

 period of New Zealand, and the era immediately following it. The principal 

 strata in which they are imbedded are either lacustrine or fluviatile beds, 

 situated between or immediately above the large morainic accumulations 

 which mark the former extension of our enormous glaciers in post-pliocene 

 times. Some localities, such as the banks of the river immediately below 

 Lake Tekapo, an old glacier bed surrounded by enormous moraines, have been 

 always favourite resorts for obtaining moa bones in a good state of preservation. 

 Similar beds in the neighboui-hood of Lake Wanaka have also yielded them 

 occasionally. Following down our large river courses towards the sea, these 

 remains sometimes occur in their banks, either water- worn amongst the 

 shingle, or in more perfect condition where they were preserved in silt, 

 probably deposited in back-waters or similar localities. It is evident that an 

 enormous period of time must have elapsed, first to enable these large shingle 

 masses to be deposited, forming our large plains ; and afterwards, when the 

 rivers retreated to higher sources and dwindled to smaller watercourses, to be 

 cut through to such an extent that their contents became exposed to a depth 

 of several hundred feet. From the observations we were thus able to make, 

 the conclusion has been forced upon us that these gigantic birds must have 



