There is significant evidence of early human occupation in these bays.
On the south side of Washley Peninsula, the spur of land off which stand the Raikura Rocks, are a series of approximately twenty terraces.1
Within Swamp Bay, pakohe (argillite) flakes and small moa bones have been found, indicating that the area was settled by some of the earliest arrivals to Rangitoto ki te Tonga / D’Urville Island.2
1. I. W. Keys, “The Cultural Succession and Ethnographic Features of D'Urville Island”, The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 69 (1960), accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/?wid=3081 .
2. H. W. Wellman, “Maori Occupation Layers at D’Urville Island, New Zealand”, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 5:1 (1962), 65.
