- BM
Sidestep: Rock piles
This is off our task and topic, but we have all seen a lot stated about the remains of beehive houses around NZ. I'm going to offend a few here...but that is bollocks. Who has excavated any of them? Has anyone asked the landowners if they could? Has anyone bothered to ask the land owners about the piles of rocks from paddocks cleared before and during plowing in the 1930's? Contact me and take me to three or four in the open and I'll arrange for the land owners to allow full excavation. If they are real, the base stones will be perfectly aligned. I almost guarantee they'll confirm they were piled up before plowing, for they are in what is - or once was, farmland.
Now, about the small piles in the forests... Let’s consider what a real beehive house is and what some say are beehive houses in NZ. And then let’s look at real photos from real farms with rocks piled from collection prior to plowing.
You decide. But look at these first...They show two Celtic beehive houses.
Now below are some pictures of collapsed beehive houses in Europe
Below are some pictures from a NZ website from people suggesting these are the same...!
Below are many pics of piles of rocks from actual farms around the world where rocks were cleared and piled prior to plowing etc. These were either done in the 1930's or up to the present day. Does anything seem familiar? Yes - flat ground where farming and plowing once occurred or still does.
***
Ok. So there is no doubt that within the Waipoua Forest there are stone structures. I agree they are there, but all I have photos of are all within forestry areas which were once farmland. They will be old, at least 100 years old if not a little more. Yet not one old rock pile is within native forest (that we can see in the photos) - they are all within recently planted pine forest (20-40 years old). What does that tell you? However, if you live in Auckland you may be familiar with the Otautaua and Ihumatao stonefields near the Auckland Airport. Here are some photos below as a comparison...
These piles of rocks above, at Otautaua and Ihumatao, were cleared for farming and gardens by both Maori and European. So yes, Maori made rock piles. Some of those piles now cover lava tubes and midden sites, possibly deliberately.
But the Waipoua Forest has constructed rock walls I hear you say...Yes it does! Do they look anything like these walls at Otautaua and Ihumatao below? These ones are under protection so many have been restored - but you get the idea.
***
Look, Waipoua is an archaeological site, or should be - just the same way as Otautaua and Ihumatao are now. But to suggest beehive houses were once there is ludicrous. It was all farmed land once the original bush was cleared, so think about the above photos.
Once again, as I have stated over and over in these blogs, you can make suggestions or even inferences - but don't state as fact something you cannot prove! We are proving what we find and the lead up to it, all with clear documented proof. Ok, sure, we are slow in doing so. It's all in the marketing which we already need in place when the time is right. Where we state we aren't sure of something (like the remains of the stone village near Waikaretu pointed out to us, which might yet just be excavation work), then we say we are not sure or that is is unproved.
If cave site No.1 proves otherwise to what we believe is inside, we will state it as such as we have said in previous posts - but it will be the proof many have sought, we are sure of this. So why is it that those who seem to have made a career out of speculation, in the hope and will of those that so much want our history be other than it actually is, cannot provide something concrete as evidence? Look at that photo of the girl above at Tapapakanga Park near Kawakawa Bay, east of Auckland, she stands by a small pile of rocks in farmland and it's labelled as a beehive house? Mmmm.
Where are the photos of these 'beehive houses' in virgin native forest? You know...the places the Europeans haven't touched yet. There might be some, but every photo I have seen presented as evidence, is out on farmed land. I will repeat this again...all photos of walls and collapsed 'beehive' houses are within planted pine forest which was once farmland and not native bush. The exception seems to be the farm in Northland with spherical stacks and perfectly vertical sides.
Theory about beehive houses and Celts is just that - theory. Even if it was a good theory - it's no more provable than the Big Bang, which is actually as it says it is - a theory. So provide some proof people, dig in behind the wall at Kaimanawa, excavate a rock pile near Waipoua, and find an artefact or bone fragment or something.
I'll even come and help if you're prepared to go that far and ask nicely. I'll help anything that is more than just wandering over land, looking, talking and speculating.
POST SCRIPT: 31 March 2016
Without altering any of the above (so you can see if our skepticism does change over time), I have finally had someone contact me advising there are rock piles within virgin native forest. That is awesome because my request had produced some evidence that until then was sorely missing (although I have still seen no photos - and none exist on the internet). I was advised, that it is hard to get expansive photos within the native bush. That might be true but still no one can show us a wall within native virgin forest in Waipoua. However, if there is, they are still rock piles until proven otherwise and I still question how one tell what is a rock pile compared to a pile of rocks from a Celtic beehive house. No one alive can prove it as there is not a skerrick of supporting evidence.
However, if there are many of these rock piles within the virgin forest then I admit, that is very intriguing and needs exploring and in time maybe I'll go there and under the eye of a video-camera, dismantle a pile and see how the foundations are set - after all, if it is a beehive house, the foundations would still be set into the ground in perfect formation in perfect formation would they not? And then it is right that I ask why all these people saying they are Celtic beehive houses (and they may be!) have never done what I just suggested? Maybe they are afraid of what is or isn't beneath? It's just a question that we need to ask of beehive believers.
POST SCRIPT: 9th January 2018
To date I have received no photo of anything inside the native forest as promised. We have always said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, that statement just leaves room open for questions, (which is the way we like it and present most of our suggestions). Whilst one cannot say they these walls do not exist (unless one has walked every inch of that forest) - without photographic proof within native virgin forest, neither can one say they do. Proof, always requires evidence. Evidence is always required to prove existence.
