AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND—A small, well-preserved Maori fishing settlement that may have been inhabited as early as A.D. 1350, just 30 years after the oldest known evidence of humans in New Zealand, has been found on the coast of a private island. “It’s filling in the picture of how those early Maoris and Polynesians were using the coast,” Louise Furey of the Auckland Museum told Stuff.co.nz. Moa-bone fishhooks, made from the bones of the smallest and most common moa species, were unearthed at the site, in addition to fossilized dog waste. Simon Holdaway of the University of Auckland said that early Maori fed the dogs leftover fish carcasses, used their hair in cloaks, and high-status Maori ate their meat. He and his team will continue to look for houses, pits where sweet potato crops were stored, and a waka, or Maori war canoe, before the site is lost to erosion. “It’s really, really important that we analyze the material that’s left,” Holdaway said. To read more about the settlement of the Pacific, go to "Letter From Hawaii: Inside Kauai's Past."
