1. Maori oral traditions

2. Early European speculation

3. Recent revivals of pre-Māori settlement theories

4. See also

5. References

6. Further reading

7. External links

Since the early 1900's the theory that Polynesians (Māori) were the first ethnic group to settle in New Zealand (first proposed by Captain James Cook) has been dominant among archaeologists and anthropologists.^[1][2] Before that time and until the 1920's, however, a small group of prominent anthropologists proposed that the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands represented a pre-Māori group of people from Melanesia, who once lived across all of New Zealand.^[3] While this idea lost favour among academics it was widely published and incorporated into school textbooks which has extended its life in the popular imagination.^[4][5][6]

Some early visitors to New Zealand did speculate that the original New Zealanders might be descended from ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptians, and some Christian missionaries thought that the Māori ancestors belonged to the lost tribes of Israel.^[6] In more recent times, outside of academia a similar variety of speculation of New Zealand's first settlers has occurred. These ideas typically incorporate aspects of conspiracy theories as they are in opposition to the last 100 years of academic research.^[7][8]

Maori oral traditions

Maori oral traditions speak of spirits or fairy folk living in parts of New Zealand when they arrived. They are known by various names, but most commonly as Patupaiarehe^[9] and Turehu.^[10]

Early European speculation

During the 19th century, ideas about Aryan migrations became popular and these were applied to New Zealand. Edward Tregear's The Aryan Maori (1885) suggested that Aryans from India migrated to the southeast Asia and then to the islands of the Pacific, including New Zealand.^[12]

The writing of Percy Smith and Elsdon Best from the late 19th century theorised about pre-Māori settlement. Their work inspired theories that the Māori had displaced a more primitive pre-Māori population of Moriori (sometimes described as a small-statured, dark-skinned race of possible Melanesian origin), in mainland New Zealand – and that the Chatham Island Moriori were the last remnant of this earlier race.^[3]

Recent revivals of pre-Māori settlement theories

Although modern archaeology has largely clarified questions of the origin and dates of the earliest migrations, some writers have continued to speculate that what is now New Zealand was discovered by Melanesians, 'Celts', Greeks, Egyptians or the Chinese, before the arrival of the Polynesian ancestors of the Māori.^[14][15] Some of these ideas have also been supported by politicians and media personalities.^[13][16][17]

Martin Doutré argued in a 1999 book that New Zealand had a pre-Polynesian Celtic population, and that boulders with petroglyphs on a hill in Silverdale in Auckland are artifacts left by those people.^[18] An earlier presentation of the theory of pre-Polynesian white settlement of New Zealand was Kerry Bolton's 1987 pamphlet Lords of the Soil,^[19] which states that "Polynesia has been occupied by peoples of the Europoid race since ancient times".^[20]

Other books presenting such theories have included The Great Divide: The Story of New Zealand & its Treaty, (2012) by Ian Wishart, a journalist, and To the Ends of the Earth by Maxwell C. Hill, Gary Cook and Noel Hilliam, which claims that New Zealand was discovered by explorers from ancient Egypt and Greece.^[21]

David Rankin, a Ngāpuhi elder, has drawn attention to Maori legends suggesting that people, some of them with fair skin, were already present in the islands when the Maori arrived, and has claimed the existence of a conspiracy among academics to suppress inquiry.^[22][23]

Historians and archaeologists dismiss the theories. Michael King wrote in his history of New Zealand, "Despite a plethora of amateur theories about Melanesian, South American, Egyptian, Phoenician and Celtic colonisation of New Zealand, there is not a shred of evidence that the first human settlers were anything other than Polynesian",^[24] and Richard Hill, professor of New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, said in 2012, "Not one of [the theories] has ever passed any remote academic scrutiny."^[22] Hugh Laracy of the University of Auckland called them "wild speculation" that has been "thoroughly disposed of by academic specialists".^[23]

Another historian, Vincent O'Malley, and the New Zealand Archaeological Association regard the theories as having a racist or at least a political element, seeking to cast doubt on Waitangi Tribunal claims.^[22][25] Scott Hamilton in "No to Nazi Pseudo-history: an Open Letter" further explains objections to the theories of Bolton and Doutré (and the website Ancient Celtic New Zealand).^[26]

See also

• New Zealand archaeology
• Waitaha (South Island iwi)
• Maero
• Moehau

References

Further reading

• Howe, K. (2003) The Quest for Origins - Who First Discovered and Settled New Zealand and the Pacific Islands?, Auckland: Penguin Books.

External links

• K. R. Howe. 'Ideas of Maori origins', Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 9 Nov 12, accessed 2 August 2015

• Finnish fandom
• Finnish Film Archive
• Finnish flood myth
• Finnish Floorball Federation
• Finnish folk music
• Finnish football league system
• Finnish forest reindeer
• Finnish Formula 3 Championship
• Finnish Formula Three Championship
• Finnish Freedom Cross
• Finnish frigate Haemeenmaa
• Finnish frigate Hameenmaa
• Finnish general election, 2011
• Finnish general election 2011
• Finnish Geodetic Institute
• Finnish-Georgian relations
• Finnish-German relations
• Finnish Gladiators
• Finnish Grammar
• Finnish grand duchy
• Finnish Grand Prix
• Finnish - Greek relations
• Finnish Guard
• Finnish gunboat Haemeenmaa
• Finnish gunboat Hameenmaa