{"id":557671,"date":"2026-08-03T13:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557671\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T13:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:38:11","slug":"new-zealands-oldest-european-shipwreck-shows-need-for-protection-in-kaipara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557671\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand\u2019s oldest European shipwreck shows need for protection in Kaipara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientist Dr Jonathan Palmer said it might be impossible to now work out what the ship might have been<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting together the identification and timing of the wrecks helps enrich the history of that time period of New Zealand history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer, a board member of the Kauri Museum in Matakohe, helped date the country\u2019s oldest known European shipwreck<\/a>, which was found at Pouto in 1982.<\/p>\n

Assessing planks kept at the Dargaville Museum, Palmer and his team used radiocarbon dating and tree-ring growth patterns to calculate the shipwreck was from between 1696 and 1714.<\/p>\n

It was the first shipwreck to be dated between the 1642 arrival of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and the 1769 arrival of British Captain James Cook.<\/p>\n

\"PoutoPouto Lighthouse was built to help guide ships away from the dangerous Kaipara bar. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

It suggested that other European explorers tried to follow Tasman\u2019s discovery before Cook landed, Palmer and his team said in a 2013 scientific paper.<\/p>\n

While the ancient ship was about 1.2km east-northeast of the shipwreck uncovered last month, Palmer believed it helped tell the story of how difficult and dangerous the Kaipara Harbour entrance was to navigate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of wrecks scattered along that coastline over a long period also illustrates the importance of Kaipara in early European history \u2013 primarily for kauri timber and kauri gum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shipping route was also vital for importing goods and machinery to the area for pastoral and agricultural development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer said another thing not well known was how important the Kaipara Harbour was as a shipping hub to export native flax hemp. <\/p>\n

Northlander Steven Cochrane, who allegedly witnessed the shipwreck being destroyed last month, said there should be blanket protection for all shipwrecks in the area.<\/p>\n

While Palmer said the shipwrecks shouldn\u2019t be collected for firewood, he admitted there was no easy solution to preserving them.<\/p>\n

With the shipwrecks often rapidly exposed then reburied in sand, there was neither time nor funding for a team of archaeological investigators to get to the site and protect the wreck, he explained.<\/p>\n

He would prefer shipwrecks were left to be reburied, so they could be unearthed at some point when there was funding available.<\/p>\n

Palmer had done little more shipwreck investigation since 2013, because of a lack of funding.<\/p>\n

His research since then included investigating swamp kauri<\/a> for clues about past climate change.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientist Dr Jonathan Palmer said it might be impossible to now work out what the ship might have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29804,14167,6446,2082,9832,1861,78,23157,33450,5971,117,111,43,139,69,34962,15381,8830,312,388,238308,33285,418,8229,274415,2963],"class_list":["post-557671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-date","tag-destroyed","tag-european","tag-for","tag-helped","tag-history","tag-in","tag-kaipara","tag-known","tag-need","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oldest","tag-protection","tag-rich","tag-says","tag-scientist","tag-shipwreck","tag-shouldnt","tag-shows","tag-they","tag-wrecks","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557671","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=557671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}