From Collection to Connection: ZooMS Analysis of Marine Mammal Taonga from Aotearoa New Zealand

Monica Tromp1*, Amber Aranui2, Peter Meihana3, Karen Greig1, Kristine Korzow4, Ashley Scott5, Camilla Speller6, and Christina Warinner5

Marine mammal bone taonga (treasured possessions) are a distinctive component of Indigenous Māori culture in Aotearoa New Zealand. Many such taonga are held in museum collections but lack reliable provenance, limiting their contribution to cultural interpretation. This paper presents research from the Ika Whenua Ika Moana project, which investigates marine mammal bone taonga and archaeological collections curated at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Canterbury Museum, and the University of Otago. Our study applies minimally invasive ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry, or collagen peptide mass fingerprinting) to identify family or species from taonga and fragmentary bone, examining archaeological collections from early Polynesian settlement sites and more recent museum collections. Taonga and midden material recovered from Wairau Bar, one of the earliest archaeological sites in Aotearoa, provide key reference points for understanding how marine mammal interactions, bone‑working traditions, and exchange networks have changed to the present day. The minimally invasive nature of the technique is particularly significant given the sacred nature of these taonga. Central to this research are ongoing partnerships with hapū and iwi, whose knowledge and perspectives are integral to the analytical process itself — not simply an ethical consideration. This collaboration actively shapes how taonga are interpreted, how research questions are framed, and how institutionally held taonga are reconnected to their cultural histories. By weaving together ZooMS and mātauranga Māori, the project models a genuinely bicultural approach to the study of legacy collections.a