Geologist’s Opinion On Arrival Of First Maoris

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28620, 24 June 1958, Page 7

Geologist’s Opinion On Arrival Of First Maoris

“The Preps" Special Service

WELLINGTON, June 23. New Zealand’s Maoris have lived in this country for about 2000 years in the opinion of Dr. W. H. Wellman, winner of the Royal Society’s Hector Prize for his geological work last year. Excavations dated by widespread eruptions of volcanic asii from Lake Taupo in 300 A.D. showed that the first evidence of occupation was apparent shortly after the eruption, said Dr. Wellman.

About 250 years of settlement and natural increase must have occurred before the eruption for the population growth needed to deposit the layers of charcoal, charred bone and shellfish, and fragments of implements on the excavated sites. This would bring the first arrival of the Maori back to about 2000 years ago. The Taupo ash shower had left traces in widespread areas of the East Coast. These ash layers were easily identified, and had been carbon dated by the carbon 14 method, he said. Dr. Wellman is now one of a number of geologists and archaeologists throughout Newi

Zealand awaiting accurate dating ,of materials taken from early occupation areas. This work is carried out by the Dominion i Physical Laboratory, Gracefield, where the backlog of work awaiting dating is now two years. Dr. Wellman bases his estimate on the results of the work he did on the East Coast last year while heading the oil research and survey prospecting for the British Petroleum Company. He is now a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, and re- , cently won a University of New Zealand research grant which will allow him to carry on his geological research into early Maori ocj cupation on other parts of the _ New Zealand coast. Because the layers of material were coincident in level at the same period over the whole coast- ’ line in the sites he had investi--1 gated, he estimated that the Maori population of just after 300 A.D. ; had been in the order of about 5000 in that part of the coast, said Dr. Wellman. To build to this level must have taken about 250 to 300 years, bringing the first arrival of the Maori .back to about ths birth of Christ, or shortly after.