Pre-European Maori Fishing at Foxton, Manawatu, New Zealand Janet Davidson', Foss Leach', Karen Greig 2 , Penny Leach 1 ABSTRACT Fish r emains from excavations in four areas of the Foxton archaeologica l site (S24/3) were analysed. The 4109 identified bones produced a Minimum Number of Individuals of 1040 fish from 8 families. The assemblage was dominated by New Zea l and snapper (Pagms auratus, Family Sparidae), which comprised 80% of the total MNI. Kahawai (Arripis tn1tta, Fami ly Anipidae) contributed 15% and other families only minor amounts. Snapper decreased in abundance and kahawai increased from the lower to the upper layers. The Foxton catch at all periods is different from other assemblages studied from central New Zealand. Thi s partly reflects the l ocal marine environment, which lacks rocky shores and reefs, but we al so hypothesise that it is related to wanner surface sea water conditions in Cook Strait in the early phase of the New Zealand prehistori c period. Size frequency diagrams were constructed for snapper and kahawai. It was found that the mean fork length and mean ungutted weight of snapper increased over time. Similar changes have been observed for other species in archaeological sites in New Zealand. Keywords: NEW ZEALAND, FOXTON, MAORI , ARCHAEOZOOLOGY, FISHING, SIZE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION. INTRODUCTION The Foxton site (S24/3) is one of relatively few archaeological sites in the Cook Strait region with numerous bones of moa and other extinct birds. Like other early coastal sites in New Zealand, it also contained abundant fish bones and shells. This paper reports the results of a study of the fi sh remains. The site is the northern-most we have studied in the greater Cook Strait area and one of the oldest. It extends our understanding of the diversity of pre-European Maori fish catches in central New Zealand. THE FOXTON ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE The Foxton site is situated in the Manawatu sand plain on the west coast of the North Island. This plain is part of a dune belt that extends from Paekakariki in the south to Patea in the north (Cowie 1963). The dune belt is traver sed by three major rivers (Manawatu, Rangitikei and Wanganui) and many smaller ones. Foxton is the only known archaeological site between Paekakariki and Wanganui containing definite evidence of moahunting (Anderson 1989: 111 , 115). The closest site likely to be of similar age is almost 90 km to the south at Paremata (Davidson 1978). Today the site is about 2.4 km north of the Manawatu River and 2.8 km inland. It lies on the inland side of the southernmost of a line of lagoons extending northwards from the 1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, PO Box 467, Wellington, New Zealand 2 New Zealand Hi storic Places Trust, PO Box 2629, Wellington, New Zealand New Zealand Journal of Archaeology, 2001, Vol. 22(2000), pp. 75- 90.