Wilkes Owen
Owen Wilkes 1940-2005
Picture from Listener obituary
Owen was born and raised in Christchurch and studied Geology at Canterbury University but did not complete the degree. He had a strong outdoor bent and it was through this that he took up an interest in archaoelogy. An early associate was Tony Fomison. In 1963 he joined Canterbury Museum as a field archaeologist. Excavations at Wairau Bar and Heaphy River resulted. At thois time and later he was filekeeper for the site recordign scheme for Canterbury, Nelson / Marlborough and Westland.
He fell out with museum director Roger Duff in the course of archaeological work in the Cook Islands in 1964 and left the museum.
Periods as a field researcher in entomology followed, as well as other field roles mostly outside archaeology but then a major shift to peace and environmental activisim. He was a formidable researcher often finding material that Governments thought they had kept secret.
From 1995 onwards he returned
Ritchie, N. 2005 "Better To Go Now": Owen Wilkes 1940-2005. Archaeology in New Zealand 48(3):221-241.
Gordon Campbell 2005 Listener May 28-June 3 2005 Vol 198 No 3394. Online
Tributes:
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/owentr.htm
Bibliography
1959 Wairau Bar. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 3(l):3-4.
1960 Site survey ot west Nelson. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 4(1):22-31.
1962 Notes from Canterbury. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 5(2):110-111.
1964 Further work at South Bay. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 1(3):129-132,128.
- and R J Scarlett
1964 Further Heaphy River excavations. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 1(3):1128.
1967 Excavation of a moa-hunter site at the mouth of the Heaphy River. Records of the Canterbury Museum VIII (3): 177–208.
- and R J Scarlett and George Boraman 1963 New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter Two moa-hunter sites in north-west Nelson. 6(2):88-93.
- and G M Mason
1963 Dashing Rocks, Timaru: a preliminary note on excavations – site Slll/1.6 New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter (2):95-98.
1963 Tumbledown Bay - a Banks Peninsula moa-hunter site S94/30. New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 6(2):98-100.
