{"id":343174,"date":"2026-03-23T04:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343174\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T04:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:16:08","slug":"human-remains-found-in-garden-in-wellingtons-owhiro-bay-are-centuries-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343174\/","title":{"rendered":"Human remains found in garden in Wellington’s \u014cwhiro Bay are centuries old"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo:\n<\/p>\n

Human remains found in a garden on Wellington’s south coast are centuries old, according to police.<\/p>\n

RNZ understands an \u014cwhiro Bay homeowner was gardening when they made the discovery in June last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

At the time, police said the resident was under no suspicion and a forensic anthropologist and pathologist determined the remains were human.<\/p>\n

On Monday, police said radiocarbon dating showed the remains were possibly M\u0101ori (or tangata whenua) from the 1600s-1700s.<\/p>\n

“This information will now be supplied to the Coroner for consideration,” Detective Constable Sarah Steed said.<\/p>\n

“Consultation will take place with local iwi to arrange a suitable burial site, once the remains are release by the Coroner.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Human remains found in a garden on Wellington’s south coast are centuries old, according to police. RNZ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-343174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}