Māori history The history of the M ā ori began with the arrival of Polynesian settlers in New Zealand ( Aotearoa in Māori), in a series of ocean migrations in canoes starting from the late 13th or early 14th centuries. Over several centuries of isolation, the Polynesian settlers formed a distinct culture that became known as the Māori. Early Māori history is often divided into two periods: the Archaic period (c. 1300 – c. 1500) and the Classic period (c. 1500 – c. 1642). Archaeological sites such as Wairau Bar show evidence of early life in Polynesian settlements in New Zealand. Many of the crops that the settlers brought from Polynesia did not grow well at all in the colder New Zealand climate, although many native bird and marine species were hunted, sometimes to extinction. An increasing population, competition for resources and changes in local climate led to social and cultural changes seen in the Classic period of Māori history. This period saw the emergence of a warrior culture and fortified villages ( p ā ), along with more elaborate cultural art forms. One group of Māori settled the Chatham Islands around 1500, forming a separate, pacifist culture known as the Moriori. The arrival of Europeans to New Zealand, starting in 1642 with Abel Tasman, brought enormous changes to the Māori, who were introduced to Western food, technology, weapons and culture by European settlers, especially from Britain. In 1840 the British Crown and many Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, allowing New Zealand to become part of the British Empire and granting Māori the status of British subjects. Initial relations between Māori and Europeans (whom the Māori called "Pākehā") were largely amicable. However, rising tensions over disputed land sales led to conflict in the 1860s and large-scale land confiscations. Social upheaval and epidemics of introduced disease also took a devastating toll on the Māori people, causing their population to decline and their standing in New Zealand to diminish. But by the start of the 20th century, the Māori population had begun to recover, and efforts have been made to increase their social, political, cultural and economic standing in wider New Zealand society. A protest movement gained support in the 1960s seeking redress for historical grievances. In the 2013 census, there were approximately 600,000 people in New Zealand identifying as Māori, making up roughly 15 per cent of the national population. The Māori settlement of New Zealand represents an end- point of a long chain of island-hopping voyages in the South Pacific. Evidence from genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology indicates that the ancestry of Polynesian people stretches all the way back to indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Language- evolution studies [1] and mtDNA evidence [2] Origins from Polynesia suggest that most Pacific populations originated from Taiwanese indigenous peoples around 5,200 years ago. [3] These Austronesian ancestors moved south to the Philippines where they settled for some time. [4] From there, some eventually sailed southeast, skirting the northern and eastern fringes of Melanesia along the coasts of Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck Islands to the Solomon Islands where they again settled, leaving shards of their Lapita pottery behind and picking up a small amount of Melanesian DNA. From there, some migrated down to the western Polynesian islands of Samoa and Tonga while others island-hopped eastward, all the way from Otong Java in the Solomons to the Society Islands of Tahiti and Ra'iatea (once called Havai'i, or Hawaiki). From there, a succession of migrant waves colonised the rest of eastern Polynesia, as far as Hawai'i in the north, the Marquesas Islands and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east, and lastly New Zealand in the far south. [5] Analysis by Kayser et al. (2008) discovered that only 21 per cent of the Māori- Polynesian autosomal gene pool is of Melanesian origin, with the rest (79 per cent) being of East Asian origin. [6] Another study by Friedlaender et al. (2008) also confirmed that Polynesians are closer genetically to Micronesians, Taiwanese indigenous peoples, and East Asians, than to Melanesians. The study concluded that Polynesians moved through Melanesia fairly rapidly, allowing only limited admixture between Austronesians and Melanesians. [7] The Polynesian population experienced a founder effect and genetic drift. [8] Evidence of an ancestral phase in the southern Philippines comes from the discovery that Polynesians share about 40 per cent of their DNA with Filipinos from this area. [4] In New Zealand, there are no human remains, artefacts or structures which are confidently dated to earlier than the Kaharoa Tephra, a layer of volcanic debris deposited by the Mount Tarawera eruption around 1314 CE. [9] The 1999 dating of some kiore (Polynesian rat) bones to as early as 10 CE [10] was later found to be an error. New samples of rat bone (and also of rat-gnawed shells and woody seed cases) gave dates later than the Tarawera eruption except for three which dated to a decade or so before the eruption. [11] Settlement of New Zealand Pollen evidence of widespread forest fires a decade or two before the eruption has led some scientists to speculate that humans may have lit them, in which case the first settlement date could have been somewhere in the period 1280–1320 CE [12] which is now a widely quoted date. However, the most recent synthesis of archaeological and genetic evidence concludes that, whether or not some settlers arrived before the Tarawera eruption, the main settlement period was in the decades after it, somewhere between 1320 and 1350 CE, possibly involving a coordinated mass migration. [13] This scenario is also consistent with a much debated third line of evidence – traditional genealogies ( whakapapa ) which point to 1350 AD as a probable arrival date for many of the founding canoes ( waka ) from which most Māori trace their descent. [14] [15] Māori oral history describes the arrival of ancestors in a number of large ocean- going canoes, or waka , from Hawaiki Hawaiki is the spiritual homeland of many eastern Polynesian societies and is widely considered to be mythical. However, a number of researchers think it is a real place – the traditionally important island of Raiatea in the Leeward Society Islands (in French Polynesia), which, in the local dialect, was called Havai'i. [16] [4] Migration accounts vary among tribes ( iwi ), whose members may identify with several waka in their genealogies. With them the settlers brought a number of species which thrived: the kūmara, taro, yams, gourd, tī, aute (paper mulberry) – and dogs and rats. It is likely that other species from their homeland were also brought, but did not survive the journey or thrive on arrival. [17] In the last few decades, mitochondrial- DNA (mtDNA) research has allowed an estimate to be made of the number of women in the founding population, of between 50 and 100. [18] [19] An artist's rendition of a Haast's eagle attacking moa. Both species become extinct in the Archaic period. The earliest period of Māori settlement is known as the "Archaic", "Moahunter" or "Colonisation" period. The eastern Polynesian ancestors of the Māori arrived in a forested land with abundant birdlife, including several now extinct moa species Archaic period (1300–1500) weighing between 20 kilograms (44 lb) and 250 kg (550 lb) each. Other species, also now extinct, included the New Zealand swan, the New Zealand goose and the giant Haast's eagle, which preyed upon the moa. Marine mammals – seals in particular – thronged the coasts, with evidence of coastal colonies much further north than those which remain today. [20] Huge numbers of moa bones – estimated to be from between 29,000 and 90,000 birds – have been located at the mouth of the Waitaki River, between Timaru and Oamaru on the east coast of the South Island. Further south, at the mouth of the Waihemo ( Shag River), evidence suggests that at least 6,000 moa were slaughtered by humans over a relatively short period of time. [21] Archaeology has shown that the Otago region was the node of Māori cultural development during this time, and the majority of archaic settlements were on or within 10 km (6 mi) of the coast. It was common for people to establish small temporary camps far inland for seasonal hunting. Settlements ranged in size from 40 people (e.g., Palliser Bay in Wellington) to between 300 and 400 people, with forty buildings (such as at Shag River). [22] Early Archaic period objects from the Wairau Bar archaeological site, on display at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch The best-known and most extensively studied Archaic site is at Wairau Bar in the South Island. [23] The site is similar to eastern Polynesian nucleated villages and is the only New Zealand archaeological site containing the bones of people who were born elsewhere. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal, human bone, moa bone, estuarine shells and moa eggshell has produced a wide range of date estimates, from the early 13th to the early 15th centuries, many of which might be contaminated by "inbuilt age" from older carbon which was eaten or absorbed by the sampled organisms. [24] [25] Due to tectonic forces, including several earthquakes and tsunamis since human arrival, some of the Wairau Bar site is now underwater. [26] Work on the Wairau Bar skeletons in 2010 showed that life expectancy was very short, the oldest skeleton being 39 and most people dying in their 20s. Most of the adults showed signs of dietary or infection stress. Anaemia and arthritis were common. Infections such as tuberculosis (TB) may have been present, as the symptoms were present in several skeletons. On average, the adults were taller than other South Pacific people, at 170 centimetres (5 ft 7 in) for males and 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) for females. [27] The Archaic period is remarkable for the lack of weapons and fortifications so typical of the later "Classic" Māori, [28] and for its distinctive "reel necklaces". [29] From this period onward, some 32 species of birds became extinct, either through over- predation by humans and the kiore and kur ī (Polynesian Dog) they introduced; [30] repeated burning of the vegetation that changed their habitat; or climate cooling, which appears to have occurred from about 1400–1450. For a short period – less than 200 years – the early Māori diet included an abundance of large birds and fur seals that had never been hunted before. These animals rapidly declined: many, such as the various moa species, [31] [32] [33] [34] the New Zealand swan [35] and the kohatu shag [36] becoming extinct; while others, such as kākāpō [37] and seals [38] were reduced in range and number. Work by Helen Leach shows that Māori were using about 36 different food plants, although many required detoxification and long periods (12–24 hours) of cooking. D.