Marine submersion of an archaic moa‐hunter occupational site, Shag River estuary, North Otago

At Shag River estuary, North Otago, New Zealand, parts of an Archaic moa‐hunter occupation site (AD 1340–1410) lie beneath 50 cm of saltmarsh sediment at a modern elevation of 0.3 m below mean high water. Fossil saltmarsh foraminiferal assemblages in the overlying cored sediment provide high‐tidal palaeo‐elevation estimates (Modern Analogue Technique) that indicate a gradual rise in relative sea level of 0.59±0.05 m since that time. This part of the moa‐hunter site appears to have been located on an unvegetated high‐tidal sand flat at the time of occupation. There is no evidence that supports previously hypothesised coseismic compaction of underlying sediment as a cause for the submergence during the time of occupation. Comparison with other saltmarsh foraminiferal records in southern New Zealand suggests that the moa‐hunter occupation occurred during the interval of lowest sea level in the last millennium (early part of the Little Ice Age) and that approximately half the subsequent sea‐level rise occurred after AD 1900.