Theories are not settled about when New Zealand was first settled or exactly where the first people came from. Arrival dates range between 1200-1000 AD and the geography of origin in a triangle between Hawaii, Tonga and Tahiti.
The First Polynesian Inhabitants
There is no question New Zealand was colonised by Polynesians. Maori, the first inhabitants to meet Europeans (Abel Tasman, 1642; James Cook, 1769) have oral myths of a mass canoe migration from a homeland called "Hawaiki" after an exploratory visit by an ancestor called Kupe.
Late 20th century research and archaeology has largely dismissed this view. Academia now poses a series of migrations over an extended period from various Polynesian locations. Maori classic culture has strong affinities with the Society Islands.
Naming the Ancestors
The early New Zealand groups were called in the 19th and 20th centuries "Moriori" and "Moa-Hunter," the latter on account that the people ate the large flightless ratites called moa that populated old New Zealand. Both terms have been superseded by "Archaic" pre-dating "Classic Maori," although "Moa Hunter" has stuck in popular, even academic, parlance.
Whatever the terms, the first Polynesian groups were exterminated and assimilated by later tribes (who preserved oral traditions about the arrival of the first tribal canoes) and coalesced in to what came to be "Classic Maori" as defined by European contact in the 18th century.
Dating a Definite Arrival
Stratigraphical archaeology at sites mainly in the South island has established the presence of the native Polynesian rat, or "kiore," as not present in middens before ca. 1200 AD. New Zealand has no natural land mammals besides a bat and, intriguingly, the tuatara, a cold blooded lizard zoologically connected to the dinosaurs. The tuatara is sometimes called "the living dinosaur." All other land animals were birds.
The presence of the kiore, eaten as a delicacy by Maori, establishes definite human presence from this time, as the animal can only have come by boat.
Recent Human Artefacts
The recent discovery of weathered artefacts, including the remains of an ancient woven cloak, the oldest human items found in New Zealand, on the Kaitorere Spit along the South Island's east coast have been dated to ca. 1200.
Ancient Eating
Stratigraphy establishes patterns of diet among ancient New Zealanders. Middens begin in the 12th century with large moa bones, grading down through the species over time to ever-smaller birds. Fish, seal and shellfish remains then predominate right up until European contact. During the Classic Maori period, imported kure (Polynesian dog) bones are also present, although this animal is now extinct as a definable species in New Zealand.
Direction of Colonisation
Wide research suggests humans spread thru the final reaches of the earth initially thru Micronesia into Polynesia against the sea winds as far as Easter Island (and controversially perhaps as far east as South America, populated by land from the north by Mongoloids).
Kumara, a sweet potato and a mainstay of Classic Maori diet and culture, is native to South America. This suggests some form of contact may have taken place with the South American coast before island-jumping Polynesians travelled westward again on southern winds that brought them eventually to north New Zealand.
The first person to site the most southern continent, Antarctica, was Cook, 1773; the first landfall was made by another James, Ross, in 1841 although the frozen continent has still not been colonised by humanity beyond scientific research stations.
Trotter, Michael; McCulloch, Beverley. Unearthing New Zealand, GP Books, Wellington, 1989.
King, Michael. Penguin History of New Zealand, Auckland, 2003.
John Stringer - I'm a mid-forties pastor living and working in Christchurch, New Zealand. I have five teenage to young adult children in New Zealand and ...
