Matau (fish hook)

One-piece, non-barbed, bone bait hook typically found in the earliest archaeological sites of the northern North Island of New Zealand, but not uncommon in sites from Otago (lower South Island) to Northland. The archaealogical record suggests they were used continuously by Maori from first settlement until after the period 1500AD, and even into relatively recent times (17th and 18th centuries). The perforated protrusion that underscores the base of the fish hook is actually a bait-knob, used to affix bait to the hook.