NEW publication: Archaeology of the Bay of Plenty By Garry Law. 149 p. What's it about? This report summarises the state of knowledge of the archaeology of the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, and reviews research themes and priorities of the past and for the future. The Bay of Plenty is favoured as a place to live today, but this has not always been the case. Its first settlement by Maori seems to have been sparse, whereas there are numerous sites from the later pre-European occupation period. The early economy was based around the marine resources and soils, which were well suited to cultivation of kumara. The first European visitors took relatively little interest in the region as it generally lacked the gold and accessible timber resources that drove early growth elsewhere, and cobalt-deficient soils made pastoral farming unattractive in much of the area. The development of improved transport resulted in greater growth, and pastoral farming increased as the lowlands and swamps were