New Zealand has a wide range of archaeological sites. However, these different perspectives mean that the relationship between Māori values and archaeological values is not always a comfortable one (Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, 1996a). These are valued not for personal or spiritual reasons, but for the information they can provide to those scientists who are trying to better understand our past. Many places of significance to Māori can also be classified from a scientific perspective as archaeological sites. Conversely, sites that are waahi tapu for one tribe may be treated with indifference, or even contempt, by members of another tribe. Often, the existence or location of a waahi tapu is known only to the local tribe, or to some members of the tribe, who would not consider making that information public (Manatu Māori, 1991). Each iwi, hapu or whanau (tribe, sub-tribe or extended family) has its own definition of waahi tapu which is valid only to them none would be so presumptuous as to define waahi tapu for another group. Strong bonds link the most important waahi tapu sites to their appropriate tribes. Urupa (burial grounds) are the most obvious example of waahi tapu, but others can include ana tupapaku (burial caves), ossuaries, pa where battles have occurred, other sites where blood has been spilt, tauranga waka (sites where ancestral canoes have been beached) and some mountains (Manatu Māori, 1991). Literally translated, waahi tapu means sacred place, but this translation fails to capture the deep emotional and spiritual significance of waahi tapu to the people associated with a site.

Places of significance to Māori may include 'everyday' sites, such as marae (regular gathering places), pa sites and mahinga kai (food gathering areas), as well as waahi tapu (see Box 2.4 ). New Zealand's cultural heritage places and objects can be roughly divided into four overlapping categories: places of significance to Māori archaeological sites historic buildings and structures and cultural landscapes (Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, 1996a). Other aspects of cultural heritage, such as museum collections, creative arts, customs and languages, are not included, though Chapter 9 of this report contains a discussion of culturally important plants and their uses (see Box 9.13). As a result, the following discussion is confined to those aspects of heritage that relate to areas, places and fixed tangible objects. All of these are aspects of our cultural heritage.Ī comprehensive review of all these aspects of our cultural heritage is beyond the scope of this report whose focus is primarily on the natural and physical environment. They also left their mark in the languages we have inherited, the traditional crafts we still value, the fashions we reinvent, the religious ideas that many still adhere to, and the scattered written records, photographs and artefacts of yesteryear.

Yet all of them-hunters, farmers, merchants and miners-left their stamp on the landscape, whether as beach middens, terraced hillsides, old buildings or graveyards. Most of those who made the traumatic break with their homelands came to settle and build a new life, though some, like sealers, whalers, and itinerant gold miners, soon moved on. No matter what the timespan, our cultural heritage connects us to all who came before us, whether they paddled here from Hawaiki or hoisted sail in the ports of England and Scotland. The result is an evolving mix of Polynesian, European, and also Asian, ways of seeing and doing, making each new generation of New Zealanders slightly different from the previous one and yet intimately linked to it. While the core elements of these cultures were imported from parent cultures overseas, much adaptation and evolution has occurred within the New Zealand environment, particularly with the Māori culture which is distinctive among Polynesian cultures. New Zealand's ethnic groups each have distinctive histories and cultures that contribute in different ways to our cultural heritage.

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