Prodigious Birds brings together the entire field of moa-related research, some 150 years of enquiry. The moa was a large flightless bird, hunted into extinction by the Maori tribes of New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans. Atholl Anderson brings an historical perspective to the development of moa research and its formative debates, analytical methods and results, reviewing evidence from palaeontology, biology, archaeology, ethnography and history.

Reflecting in 1769 on the manners and customs of the South Sea islands, natural scientist Sir Joseph Banks remarked that "in every expedient for taking fish they are vastly ingenious." Hence the title of this book on Pacific material culture, past and present, with broad themes of origins, the movement of peoples, and the development of their technologies. Bringing together an impressive group of scholars of Pacific archaeology, the editors have designed Vastly Ingenious as both a thoroughly up-to-date and wide-ranging survey, and as a festschrift for museum archaeologist Janet Davidson, until recently, based at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Topics include: --- early Maori disc pendants --- gourd artifacts from the Kohika lake village --- horticultural site complexes on stony soils of the eastern North Island --- ancestral Polynesian fishing gear --- reading Pacific pots --- a study of gorges from the Gogna-Cove Beach site, Guam --- shell fishhooks of the Lapita cultural