Treasure hunters fall foul of plundering law

Friday, 15 February 2019

Treasure hunter David Yates unearthed a 4.5-kilogram gold lump, alongside shoes and a gold seal, buried on the Marlborough coastline in October last year.

Treasure hunters on Kaikōura's coast are being asked to leave Maori taonga where they are following a proliferation of people digging for, and discovering, artefacts exposed following the 2016 earthquake.

Kaikōura Museum manager Stephanie Lange said about nine people had come into the museum with historic treasures uncovered along the coastline, including well-preserved bottles, marine fossils, leather shoes, and in one case - what one man believes to be gold.

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'Because of the [quake] uplift, they were released from between rocks or in sand,' Lange said. 'We're seeing a range of items coming in, and these are stretching over a long time period.'

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One of the beach sites near Kaikōura was a whaling station and a significate Maori site and the area is considered a geologically and archeologically rich area.

In 2017 workers clearing boulders on a slip above State Highway 1 north of Kaikoura found human remains, thought to be pre-European Maori, at a site called Tombstone Rock.

Nelson man David Yates believes he found gold buried on the Marlborough coastline in October.

He uncovered what he suspects is a 4.5kg gold lump, alongside shoes and a gold seal, after following clues left in the book, Arawata Bill.

A human skull, thought to be several hundred years old, was discovered by Abseil Access workers in March 2017 in a slip above SH1 caused by the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.

Yates refused to disclose where he found the treasure, in case others destroyed the site, but said it was 'buried in the sand' with 'no wrapping around it'.

The museum is verifying its origins.

Lange said while it was good Yates had brought his find to the museum, he should have notified authorities and requested they dig for it.

The earthquake revealed the reefs that claimed many ships around Cape Campbell, in Marlborough.

Māori artefacts, human objects from before 1900 and human objects with 'significant' value from after 1900 are protected in New Zealand and ownership of newly discovered taonga are regulated by legislation under the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

'Taonga hold value to communities as they are an important link to tūpuna [ancestors] and whenua [the land], and also offer broad insight into the history of New Zealand,' a Ministry spokeswoman said.

Heritage New Zealand (HNZ) manager archaeology Vanessa Tanner said all archaeological sites from pre-1900 were protected, which makes it unlawful to modify or destroy them.

'Basically, it's illegal to go treasure hunting.'

She had heard of at least one ship wreck that had been exposed by the quake, and HNZ was seeing 'more and more' archaeological sites due to coastal erosion, which was 'an interesting scenario'.

Emergency legislation that kicked in after the quake allowed HNZ to fast-track permission for State Highway 1 to be rebuilt under a team of archaeologists, due to the likelihood of workers unearthing taonga tūturu.

There had also been numerous archaeological permits issued to allow developers to modify sites as part of the quake recovery, she said. Permits were granted if an archaeologist deemed the space an archaeological site, or a site which had evidence of pre-1900 human activities.

While finding an item washed up on the beach was different to purposefully digging it up, she advised in both scenarios people sought advice from authorities, and left the items as found.

Marlborough Heritage Trust executive director Steve Austin recommended people read up on protected objects before heading to the coast, as 'you never know when you might be out walking and see something problematic'.