More than 70 years after they were dug up for study and display, Rangitane tupuna returned home yesterday to one of the earliest sites of known human settlement in New Zealand.

That homecoming was witnessed by hundreds on an emotional day where the remains of more than 40 ancestors, some up to 700 years old, were reburied on the Wairau Bar in Marlborough.

Tribal member Richard Bradley said that the hurt of successive generations had finally been addressed.