Last year Toitu Otago Settlers Museum, Heritage New Zealand and Fiordland Expeditions took part in an expedition to Tamatea (Dusky Sound) in Fiordland.
The week-long expedition was conducted to record places of historical significance for a documentary series about the area.
On a visit to Luncheon Cove in Pukenui (Anchor Island) the project team found the boat in the forest with trees and shrubs growing through its hull.
Maritime archaeologist Dr Kurt Bennett said the clinker boat presented a rare insight into 19th-century New Zealand boat building techniques and material selection.
"From an archaeological perspective we can go a bit deeper and actually understand materials that they used."
Heritage New Zealand archaeologist Nikole Wills analysed wood samples at the University of Otago archaeobotanical laboratories.
Using a microscope to identify cellular features of the wood, she was able to confirm the hull was constructed from kauri.
Because the sample was quite heavily degraded, Ms Wills was only able to confirm it was an indigenous species in the myrtaceae family that included kanuka, manuka and pohutukawa.
"I can say that it is likely kanuka but the cells are too degraded to make a definitive call."
This confirmed indigenous timber was being felled across the country in order to build local boats.
Information from The Engineer’s and Mechanic’s Encyclopedia published in 1836 helped identify the nails used in construction of the clinker.
Dr Bennett said the nails on the clinker resembled a "type 7" nail which dated between 1834 and 1847.
This provided a range of dates for the construction of the clinker.
"Obviously it doesn’t give a definitive date because the nails were used across a couple of decades."
In 1978 Southland Museum assistant director Jennifer Cave visited the boat and dated it to the 1800s.
However, a later visit in 1985 by Richard McGovern-Wilson and Kim Morrison overturned that assessment and Morrison identified it as a fishing dory from the 1920s.
This led to the boat being removed from The New Zealand Archaeological Association’s archaeological site recording scheme, ArchSite.
The recent expedition by the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum restored the earlier assessment that the clinker dated to the early 1800s and the site was once again added to ArchSite, Dr Bennett said.
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum expedition director William McKee said this was a wonderful offshoot from the team documenting a known historical site.
"For a relatively young country, we still have plenty of history left to discover.
"It is also an exciting example of how improving research and technology can help us understand the past better."
