Who were the first New Zealanders? Addressing disinformation regarding Māori as not indigenous, part 1

Hamish Dickson - 21 January 2025

I saw a lot of anti-Māori disinformation on social media in the last few months before the 2023 New Zealand general elections. For clarity, disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people with a goal in mind, whereas misinformation is incorrect or misleading information that is spread without specific malicious intent. Such rhetoric can create a voting block large enough for politicians to pander to, and it would be tempting for MPs to then pledge to implement policies to attract these voters. It can also swing voters to vote for parties who are sympathetic to their newly formed views. The anti-Māori disinformation that was being spread on social media at the time largely took on two forms.

The first was a claim that the Treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was a 1970s rewritten version, as the original version had been borrowed and only found again in 1989. This original version is known as the The Littlewood Treaty, and apparently lacks the sovereignty component, as well as many other benefits Māori enjoy today. The fact that the Littlewood Treaty has never been acknowledged by any formally qualified historian as being legitimate, and was never signed by anyone, appears to not make a difference in many people’s minds. Other arguments used to delegitimise Māori rights granted under the Treaty challenge Māori sovereignty to land and fisheries. In the English version, the crown has sovereignty, but in the Māori version, Māori are granted sovereignty. There are some who challenge the Māori sovereignty as a misinterpretation of the original document.

The second form of disinformation involves a claim that Europeans were the first to arrive in Aotearoa, only to be wiped out by Māori. This disinformation appears aimed at delegitimising Māori as indigenous people of New Zealand and, in so doing, rendering the Treaty of Waitangi obsolete. In this article I will only be talking about and debunking the claim that Europeans were first to arrive in New Zealand, and subsequently wiped out by Māori. I hope to address the Littlewood Treaty and other arguments challenging current Māori sovereignty under the treaty in a future article.

The current National-led coalition government, it has been argued, has been the harshest on Māori, described by some as “dangerous”, and by Natalie Coates, co-president of the Māori Law Society, as the “worst assault on Māori I’ve seen in my 40-year career”.

As many will know, law changes in 2020 by the Labour-led government made it easier for councils to establish Māori wards. Māori wards are representatives of local Māori who sit on council meetings to give non-binding advice on issues that affect them. The National-led Government repealed this 2020 law on the grounds there had been no public input to the law change. It said any council that had started a Māori ward since 2020 must decide if they want to retain their Māori wards. Those who decide to keep them must hold a referendum, at their expense, as part of the 2025 local body elections, or else remove those wards. Some of these referendums are predicted to cost up to fifty thousand dollars. Forty five City Councils around the country had an election internally, and all but two wanted to keep their Māori wards. I suspect we will see an increase on social media of posts favouring the idea that Europeans are indigenous, as the referendum end date looms closer. This disinformation may have an effect on the outcome of the referendum favouring the removal of Māori Wards from councils. Disinformation is also likely to increase in the unlikely event the ACT Party gets its way in reviewing the Treaty of Waitangi, and potentially eliminating the Māori sovereignty interpretation. If it goes through, this will likely be up for referendum as well. The aim of this article is to illuminate reasons why the notion that Europeans were in New Zealand first is not only wrong, but also potentially harmful.

This article will outline claims made by some fringe theorists, and debunk each one in turn. In my second article I will conclude with an evidence-based theory to support Polynesians as the first indigenous peoples to New Zealand, who later developed a culture referred to today as Māori.

There have been claims of Egyptian and Chinese settlers in Aotearoa before Māori, but these ideas are entertained by so few that a discussion of this will be beyond the scope of this article. Also not discussed are claims that, according to the ethnohistorian Barry Brailsford, Māori legend says there were non European people already living in Aotearoa before Māori arrived. Only disinformation about Europeans being indigenous to New Zealand, and then replaced by Māori, will be discussed, as this is the sort of disinformation that is likely to be spread in order to affect the outcome of a referendum concerning Māori.

Among the advocates of the “Europeans being indigenous to Aotearoa” hypothesis are Noel Hilliam, a self-proclaimed historian and amateur archaeologist. Noel has no formal training in any of these disciplines, which will become obvious later in this article. Hilliam, a long-time believer in an ancient white civilization preceding Māori, claimed to have found two pre-Māori skulls that were “European in appearance”. He claimed the two skulls were sent to an Edinburgh forensic expert who drew pictures of them.

According to the documentary series New Zealand: Skeletons in the Cupboard, in reality it was just a single tooth that was sent to this expert. Apparently the pathologist claimed the skull had a lineage from Wales, and dated from around 3,000 years ago. When reminded of the large fine of up to $60,000 for deliberately disturbing human burials, Noel claimed he found the remains in a hangi pit.

The Vice TV channel enquired at Edinburgh University, and were told that apparently no such person exists. He has absolutely no evidence for any of his claims other than his word, which was the reason the charges against him were dropped before he passed away in 2017.

Hilliam obviously lied, and did so deliberately to deceive, likely for political reasons. He claimed he received over 500 emails from around the world asking why the authorities were not taking his claims seriously. Noel also claimed he found a Nazi submarine wrecked off the coast of New Zealand, along with a Spanish sailing ship wreckage, but suddenly couldn’t locate them when asked for their whereabouts. However, if you watch the following Skeletons in the Cupboard episode on YouTube, and skip to 44 mins in, Noel’s story appears at first blush somewhat convincing. More on this documentary later in the article.

Another advocate for the idea that the first inhabitants of Aotearoa were of European descent, notably Celtic, is Martin Doutré. Doutré, a former Mormon missionary, claims to be both an astronomer and archaeologist. He combines the two disciplines to form what he identifies as Astro-archaeology. Just like Noel Hillian, Doutré has no formal qualifications in either discipline. Among other claims are that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Treaty of Waitangi was a 1975 doctored hoax of what it once was.

Doutré maintains a friendship with Kerry Bolton, who is perhaps New Zealand’s best-known neo-Nazi. Bolton joined the fascist Nationalist Workers Party in 1977, and has been active in extreme right-wing politics ever since. Doutré has also appeared on Counterspin, a far-right conspiracy theory media outlet, talking about the Treaty and how Māori are not indigenous to New Zealand. He runs a website called https://www.celticnz.co.nz/, which promotes the idea that Celtic people predated Māori by thousands of years. He has also authored a book called “Ancient Celtic New Zealand” (1999) on the same topic.

According to Doutré, from his own website, “the first ancient settlers were [a] peaceful tribe of Europeans who lived happily for many centuries before being conquered by Polynesian invaders who were the ancestors of the Māori. The ‘savage’ Polynesians supposedly ate all the Celtic men, made the Celtic women into sex slaves, and stole the wood and greenstone carvings the Celts had created”. He “backs up” his claims with sites such as that found in the Waipoua Forest, among others. Below is a picture of some of the remains of what Doutré refers to as Celtic in origin, which he says predate Māori.

Waipoua Forest site

Doutré claims he has seen a radiocarbon date for the site at around 2200 Before Present (BP). Doutré also claims that, because the structures were made from stone, they can’t have been erected by Māori, as Māori had no proficiency in stone work. However, there are numerous ancient stone structures throughout Polynesia that suggest otherwise, such as fishing shrines in Hawaii and other types throughout French Polynesia, as well as the more famous monolith heads of Easter Island or Rapa Nui, known as Moʻai.

Doutré adds that there has been an embargo since 1988 on this site, and all artefacts from it, for 75 years, including the release of Carbon 14 (C14) dates. He goes on to say, in the Skeletons in the Cupboard documentary, that this embargo was to help cover up the truth about the origins of Māori and their wrongful place as indigenous New Zealanders. Doutré later claimed, on his website, that the 1988 embargo has been lifted since 1996, yet others persist that the site still has an embargo and is all part of a cover up to hide the truth.

The Department of Conservation were contacted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) Fact Check, and they said no such embargo ever existed. The whole document has been available, including all C14 dates, since, and can be read here and here. The C14 dates put the site well within the range of Māori settlement in New Zealand. Why would anyone put an embargo on an important archaeological site like this one you ask?

Doutré asks, on his website, “How does manipulated, “Indigenous Rights” legislation neutralise scholars and leave them hamstrung and hog-tied, regarding access to artefacts or research materials? How is the abysmal, stagnated state of New Zealand archaeology duplicated in North America?”. In other words, he’s suggesting that a conspiracy of academics, government bureaucrats, museum workers, and “elite Māori” are suppressing knowledge of New Zealand’s prehistory.

Both Martin Doutré and Kerry Bolton are conspiracy theorists. They believe that every aspect of the world is governed by a set of elaborate conspiracies, and run by world banks and Jews. Doutré also spends a lot of time looking for natural markers on the landscape that line up to celestial objects, as a way to suggest the existence of solar calendars. These calendars are, of course, built by the Ancient Celts 3000 years ago, at least according to Doutré. I am not going to talk about this here, as it will take up too much time to debunk them all, but what he is really seeing are all natural objects combined with an active imagination. He appears to be guilty of the Sharpshooter fallacy, where he metaphorically shoots an arrow then draws a bullseye around it afterwards.

Doutré claims that in a 1962 archeological report there was cultural activity found at a site at Poukawa, underneath an ash layer from the Taupo eruption around 1800 years ago. All he found in the report were grainy photos of broken moa bones, which he claims were butchered. The original report can be downloaded here. A more updated report that Doutré ignores can be downloaded here, which says the site is probably only between 150 and 300 years old.

Skeletons in the Cupboard gained 1.5 million views on YouTube. It was also streamed hundreds of thousands of times on TVNZ OnDemand, before it was taken down due to a complaint made through Radio New Zealand (RNZ). The director of this documentary, Peter Marsh, was interviewed by Radio New Zealand on the program Media Watch and asked about both the authenticity and some of the content, as well as about two of those interviewed who are far-right conservatives with a racist agenda. Marsh did not deny the far-right links both Doutré and Hilliam have. Instead he responded by saying that the documentary was made to present the evidence, and not to espouse the interviewees’ political ideas.

Marsh was also asked about claims made in the documentary about the Auckland Museum telling a bulldozer driver to mow over skeletal remains of about 200 humans, as the local Iwi (tribe) wasn’t interested in anything that pre-dated their arrival to New Zealand. This kind of thing never happens in real life! Peter Marsh admitted he never contacted the museum to verify this claim. The fact that he didn’t query it shows what little critical thinking he has put into his documentary. The full interview on RNZ can be listened to and read about here.

There has been talk of Patupaiarehe, or fairy people, being here before Māori. According to Māori mythology, Patupaiarehe were very small and fair skinned with red hair, and lived in burrows. According to Skeletons in the Cupboard, burrows have been found on Māori sites. These however are quite clearly just storage pits for Kumara.

Other stories of 8 foot giants with red hair that predated Māori only appear in fiction, and there is no evidence of such creatures existing.

Claims that Moriori were in New Zealand first and wiped out by Māori are more nuanced. This is not true, as we now know that Moriori were Māori that settled the Chatham Islands about 500 years ago, where they developed their own distinct culture. Evidence that there were no human inhabitants before the Polynesians’ arrival will become more apparent in my second article, where I will discuss material evidence concerning the time of arrival of the first humans to Aotearoa.

The Kaimanawa wall in the Kaimanawa State Forest has been stated by some to be evidence of a pre-Māori civilisation with, of course, European origins. There have been theories put forward by some archeologists, such as Barry Brailsford, that indicate the wall was built by pre-Māori, but not Europeans. A more in-depth discussion of this topic is provided by an NZ Skeptics article that is reproduced below, and beyond the scope of this article, as we are only focusing here on debunking claims of Europeans as indigenous.

There’ll be no surprise as to who has promoted the Kaimanawa wall as evidence of Europeans being first to colonise New Zealand. The same two individuals, Doutré and Hilliam - as well as some of the others mentioned above. Their argument predictably goes that it looks old, and way too advanced for Māori, as it has perfectly aligned blocks which are too close together to be created by Māori. Brailsford might have been wrong, but at least he wasn’t racist. I can summarise by saying the “wall” is around 330,000 years old, and part of an old lava flow. As lava cools, it cracks, sometimes in a geometric pattern. Here below is that same type of rock, but found near Dunedin. The Kaimanawa wall is basically that, possibly flattened by a glacier and turned on its side. If you go to the Kaimanawa Wall, you will see evidence that some cranks have been trying to dig it up.

To conclude this section, the infamous idea of ancient rat remains comes up every now and again. These remains have been radiocarbon dated to around 2000 BP. This has been a treasure trove for those promoting the hypothesis that Māori were not the first people to New Zealand, as the only way rats could cross such vast oceans is with human aid. Carbon dating, or C14 dating, can be an inaccurate science if not done properly, as I have been told by a prominent New Zealand archaeologist. There are lots of factors that need to be considered when processing C14 dates.

I will talk more about dating problems in the next section but, for now, bad dating hygiene appears to be responsible for these early dates. When a sample comes into the lab for dating, it must be stripped of all contaminants that may influence the age. This can include skin or sweat from the person preparing the sample, humic acids in the surrounding soil that may have leached into the specimen, and a risk of accidentally dating something in the stratigraphic layer that comes from another, different time period. I have personally found bottle caps in layers dated to the mid 16th century while excavating at Shag Point near Dunedin, back when I was a student of archaeology.

Lab hygiene appears to have been responsible for the unfeasibly early date of rat remains and rat-gnawed seeds, as better controlled hygiene of lab processes led to material from the same layer and site being re-dated, after which it fell within the acceptable range for human colonisation of no earlier than 750 BP.

The idea of the origin of Māori from South America has some plausible evidence, but this is still not completely correct. As will be discussed later, the Polynesians were prolific navigators. It is therefore more likely that Polynesians landed in South America than South Americans venturing out into the Pacific. There appears both genetic and botanical evidence of an interaction between the Polynesians and South Americans before New Zealand was first settled by humans. This is in the form of Kumara (sweet potato), which originated from South America and is found in New Zealand and other parts of the Eastern Pacific, as well as genetic markers shared by Māori and to a lesser degree those from Ecuador and Peru. In the Skeletons in the Cupboard documentary, there was talk of Europeans having genetic associations with those from Rapa Nui of Easter Island who then came to New Zealand, but that interaction was during the 16th -18th centuries - well after New Zealand had been settled.

One of the main reasons for a belief that the Pacific islands were settled from South America are the sea currents, which move westerly across the Pacific. This would favour a South American origin, as that is the direction of the currents. In other words, it would be harder to sail east than to sail west. However, it has been theorised that going east means, if the voyagers get into difficulty, it is much easier to sail back home, and so this travel direction vastly increases survivability.

In part 2 of this article, I will look at the evidence we have for Māori being the first settlers to New Zealand, and also fast forward to today to see how the misconceptions detailed in this article are being used to push certain political narratives.