Pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand theories
Since the early 1900s it has been accepted by archaeologists and anthropologists that Polynesians (who became the Māori) were the first ethnic group to settle in New Zealand (first proposed by Captain James Cook).
[12] In south Westland, Kāti Māhaki ki Makaawhio's Te Tauraka Waka a Maui Marae[15] is named in honour of a tradition stating that Māui landed his canoe in Bruce Bay when he arrived in New Zealand.
[16] In a myth collected from Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora, Māui threw a giant to the sea and buried him underneath a mountain to create the area around Banks Peninsula.
[23] In the traditions of Ngāi Tahu's Waitaha descendants, Rākaihautū of the Uruaokapuarangi was the first man to set foot in the South Island by digging up the many lakes and waterways and filling them with fish.
[27] Hāwea might have alternatively been a different tribe that arrived on the Kapakitua before or at a similar time to Waitaha before merging with them, with other ancient tribal groupings possibly including the Maero and Rapuwai.
[30] Julius von Haast suggested in 1871 that an early Polynesian people who hunted the moa preceded the Māori, who introduced agriculture and lived in small villages.
[33] Two works published in 1915, Percy Smith's book The Lore of the Whare-wānanga: Part II and Elsdon Best's journal article "Maori and Maruiwi" in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, theorised about pre-Māori settlement.
Since this time archeology has become a more professional and scientifically rigorous practice and the model of Polynesians arriving in an uninhabited New Zealand and adapting to its environment has not fundamentally changed.
[42][43][44] An earlier proponent of the racist theory of a pre-Polynesian European settlement of New Zealand was white supremacist and Holocaust denier Kerry Bolton.
[50] Historian Vincent O'Malley regards the theories as having a political element, seeking to cast doubt on the status of Māori as the first people of New Zealand and as Treaty of Waitangi partners.
[7] A feature that has been put forward as evidence of pre-Polynesian settlers is the Kaimanawa Wall, which some claim is a remnant of ancient human construction that the Māori could not have built because they did not build with stone in such a way.
[53][54] History professor Kerry Howe described Doutre as "a self-styled 'archaeo-astronomer' who argues that certain configurations of stones in the New Zealand landscape are remnants of mathematically advanced astronomical devices built by ancient Celts who had links with the builders of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid.
[54] Other supposed structures and creations of pre-Polynesian settlers are described as the Waipoua 'stone city',[10] the 'Waitapu Valley (Maunganui Bluff) solar observatory' including Puketapu hill and a mountain at Hokianga, a 'stone village' in the Tapapakanga Regional Park, and all manner of petroglyphs and carvings found throughout the islands.
[10] In 2017, journalist Mike Barrington published a lengthy piece in the Northern Advocate claiming evidence that a pre-Māori Celtic population existed in the modern-day Northland Region, thanks to the efforts of amateur archeologist Noel Hilliam.
Barrington reported that Hilliam had excavated two skulls and sent them to "Edinburgh University", where an unnamed forensic pathologist had examined them and decided that they had Welsh origins.
