Oropuriri Road

This road is named after the 19th-century Māori settlement of Te Horopuriri, also known as Te Oropuriri, which was located southwest of Bell Block. Oropuriri Rd is now the site of a large commercial and industrial complex.

In the late 1840s the Puketapu hapū returned from Wellington to their ancestral land at Bell Block, which they had left in the late 1820s after raids by Waikato tribes. An 1848 map indicates that Te Oropuriri was a large kāinga (village) compared to most in the district at the time. It was said to have been occupied by between 200 and 500 people.

In July 2001 Transit New Zealand commissioned an archaeological assessment of the route for the proposed Bell Block bypass. As a result, two adjacent sites, Te Oropuriri and another settlement, were found to be directly in the path of the proposed road realignment.

Te Oropuriri was investigated with an archaeological dig in 2002, and again in 2004. At first archaeologists thought they had found one large meeting house, but they soon discovered that there were possibly three houses.

Their investigations revealed that although the site was occupied for approximately 25 years during the mid-19th century, it underwent a series of rapid changes in settlement plan and function.

Archaeologists also discovered the remains of a gunfighter pā, which was unlikely to have been fought over, because of the absence of bullets or musket balls. It is thought to be the first gunfighter pā excavation done in New Zealand.

The archaeological record of Te Oropuriri provides an extraordinary insight into a time outside the reach of most recorded history. Over 3000 archaeological features and more than 40,000 artefacts were recovered and recorded during the excavations.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.