Pāhonoa te oro

The people who built it were hunter-gatherers — no writing, no metal tools, no wheeled vehicles, no settled communities. They were not supposed to be capable of this. The site covers at least twenty-two acres. Ground-penetrating radar has identified a minimum of twenty stone circles, most still buried. Excavated enclosures contain T-shaped limestone pillars up to six meters tall and weighing up to twenty tons, arranged in precise rings with two larger central pillars facing each other.