Rod Wallace (University of Auckland) identified some Cocos nucifera nutshell amongst the charcoal in our fire feature that sits on the basal beach sand in excavations from Aleipata.

This charcoal has been sent to the Waikato lab for dating. The results will be excellent no matte the date, as we might presume the date will give us a good indication of first use of the area. Will it be synchronous with beach formation? With Lapita colonization?