By adopting a perspective inclusive of material agency, this article explores the ways in which the affordances of wood influenced its use in the crafting of North Island Māori waka taua hulls in... Show moreBy adopting a perspective inclusive of material agency, this article explores the ways in which the affordances of wood influenced its use in the crafting of North Island Māori waka taua hulls in the eighteenth century. In a practical sense, the wood itself was much more involved in the crafting of these vessels than has previously been considered in archaeological analyses, which have typically focused on the symbolic meanings of materials as opposed to the effects of their physical properties. A chaîne opératoire framework is used to outline the major steps the Māori of the North Island followed to craft waka taua hulls, incorporating the agency of wood expressed as affordances in order to complement and expand upon the previously human-centric scope of this methodology. The inclusion of material agency within the methodology makes it possible to map the ways in which both the material and the Māori carvers shaped the production of the material culture. Show less