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New archaeological research has provided a much more precise timeline for Māori settlement of Aotearoa (New Zealand) - with human settlement taking place as early as the mid - 13th century.
Dr Magdalena Bunbury from James Cook University led the study that used radiocarbon dating of 436 archaeological sites in the North Island and 145 sites in the South Island. She said advances in the field have enabled scientists to firm up the date of New Zealand’s first settlement.
“For decades, the initial human settlement of New Zealand has been estimated to have occurred between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
“This study has narrowed that down and shown that early Māori settlement happened in the North Island between AD 1250 and AD 1275,” said Dr Bunbury.
She said the South Island was reached just a decade later between AD 1280-1295, when the hunting of the giant flightless moa bird commenced, and the human population rapidly grew.
But when the bird went extinct due to the combined pressures of hunting and a period of unstable cooler weather, known as the ‘Little Ice Age’, the South Island’s Māori population also came under pressure.
“Population growth in the South Island appears to have levelled off around AD 1340 and declined between AD 1380 and 1420 with the onset of the Little Ice Age and the extinction of the moa. The population continued to grow in the north, where conditions for agriculture were optimal,” said Dr Bunbury.
Dr Bunbury said the study shows for the first time a measurable difference in the initial human settlements of the north and south islands of New Zealand.
“The results demonstrate connections between climate, resources, and population and will help us understand how human populations developed in other island nations.”
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Associate Professor Fiona Petchey, Director, Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato
For decades, researchers have placed the initial human settlement of Aotearoa between the 12th and 14th centuries AD. New modelling of over 1500 radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites around the country has resulted in a new high-resolution chronology of Māori settlement beginning in the mid-13th century AD. The researchers were able to show for the first time a measurable age difference between initial human settlements across the North and South Islands and link the findings to population, deforestation, and subsistence evidence.
This finding indicates that Māori adapted quickly to a diverse environment during dynamic temperature and precipitation changes. This enhanced precision was afforded by the inclusion of radiocarbon dates of marine materials, such as midden shells, which have previously been excluded from such evaluations because of the complexity of interpreting radiocarbon variation over time in the marine environment. This research opens up unique opportunities to investigate interconnectivity across Polynesia.
The work is a precursor to research funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Fund.
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