 My name's Simon Hottaway, I'm Professor of Archaeology at the University of Auckland. I studied the ancient past of peoples around the world. I've worked in Egypt, I've worked in Northern Australia. New Zealand was settled relatively recently on a world standard just a few centuries ago, but it's still a really fascinating past for us to study. Today what we've done is we've set up what would look a little bit like a modern excavation that archaeologists from the University of Auckland would undertake. Excavated in the site behind me is a pilot whale vertebra. We run a field school each February, so we take 15 of our top third year students to the field for two weeks and we excavate on Great Mercury Island. So in Auckland what we do is strive to be really I guess at the forefront of archaeological techniques in the world. It's the range of analyses that set us apart from not only other archaeology departments in Australasia but indeed right across the world. We really are at the forefront of research in a number of areas.