Nuts Confirm Maori Were First N. Zealanders

June 3, 2008 -- Remains of nuts nibbled by ancient rats is among new evidence that settles a debate over whether Maori people were New Zealand's first inhabitants, say researchers.

Paleontologist Trevor Worthy of the University of Adelaide in Australia and colleagues report their findings in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Worthy says the research settles a controversy triggered in 1996 when researchers reported in Nature they had found evidence for a human presence in New Zealand 2,000 years ago.

He said the report, by Richard Holdaway from the University of Canterbury and colleagues, caused a controversy since most people at the time accepted evidence that Maori were the first humans in New Zealand, and arrived much later.

"The Holdaway paper opened the door to Maori not being the people of the land which is central to their being," says Worthy.

Since then the idea that there were people in New Zealand before the Maori has gained broader acceptance, said Worthy, although scientific debate has raged over the accuracy of the dates reported in Nature.

Holdaway's 1996 paper relied on radiocarbon dating of rat bones, from the species Rattus exulans, which is generally taken as a proxy for early human presence in New Zealand, said Worthy.

"They could only get to New Zealand by human transport," said Worthy, who was involved in the Holdaway excavation in two caves on the South Island, rich with rat bones deposited by owls.

Worthy and colleagues dated bones taken from the same layers of soil excavated in the Holdaway study, as well as digging deeper to recover even older bones.