The following excerpt is from a revealing article suggesting that New Zealand’s Maori Pacific Island origins may be much newer than has been accepted.
A New Zealand historian says the idea of Maori being indigenous may need to be reconsidered.
Research led by Janet Wilmshurst from New Zealand’s Landcare Research, and Atholl Anderson, from the Australian National University, suggests Maori first settled in New Zealand between 1210 and 1385 AD.
That is in contrast to Maori genealogy, which traces the first arrivals back to 800 AD.
The research, published in the American journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, claims previous studies used radio carbon-dated materials that carried a high level of error. It says the research it has done on radio carbon-dated plant fossils dramatically shortens the “chronology for the colonisation of East Polynesia”.
Professor of History at AUT, Paul Moon, said the evidence uncovered is based on 1400 radiocarbon dates from 47 Pacific Islands.
“There are some academics who’ve said that Polynesians first arrived here in 800AD and that figure now looks to be unlikely,” Moon told ONE News.
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Read the full article at the December 29, 2010 edition of the tvnz.co.nz website.
