:Archaeology of New Zealand

Many questions about pre-contact New Zealand have been answered by archaeology and for most it is unlikely that new information will radically change our understanding. However some questions are still debated in the recent academic press in the hope that a new argument or data may bring resolution.

First attempts to date the arrival of Māori in New Zealand, by 19th-century scholars such as S. Percy Smith, were based on genealogies and oral histories, many of which – when assigned an average generation length of 25 years – converged on a settlement date around 1350 AD, while others appeared to go back much further. This resulted in the classic theory, which all schoolchildren were once taught, that New Zealand had been discovered around 750 AD, then settled by later migrations, culminating in the "Great Fleet" of seven canoes around 1350 AD.{{Cite journal|last=Howe|first=K.R.|date=8 February 2005|title=Ideas of Māori origins|journal=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/ideas-of-maori-origins/page-3=|access-date=19 February 2019|archive-date=1 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191201025536/https://teara.govt.nz/en/ideas-of-maori-origins/page-3=|url-status=dead}}{{Cite journal | last=Roberton | first=J.B.W. | year=1956 |title=Genealogies as a basis for Maori chronology | journal=Journal of the Polynesian Society |language=en | volume=65 | issue=1 | pages=45–54 |url=http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_65_1956/Volume_65,_No._1/Genealogies_as_a_basis_for_Maori_chronology,_by_J._B._W._Roberton,_p_45%9654/p1}}{{Cite journal | last=Te Hurinui | first=Pei | year=1958 | title=Maori genealogies | journal=Journal of the Polynesian Society |language=en |volume=67 | issue=2 | pages=162–165 | url=http://jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_67_1958/Volume_67%2C_No._2/Maori_genealogies%2C_by_Pei_Te_Hurinui%2C_p_162-165/p1}}

When radiocarbon dating started to be used in the 1950s, it appeared to support the idea of early settlement, though the "Great Fleet" itself fell out of favour when scholars showed that there were inconsistencies in the genealogies on which Smith had based his theory.{{Cite journal|last=Simmons|first=David|title=The great New Zealand myth: A study of the discovery and origin traditions of the Maori|journal=H.W. Reed}} This was replaced by the idea of gradual settlement over many centuries, but this in turn has proved to be mistaken.{{Cite journal | last1=Walters | first1=Richard | last2=Buckley | first2=Hallie|last3=Jacomb|first3=Chris|last4=Matisoo-Smith|first4=Elizabeth|title=Mass Migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|volume=30| issue=4 |pages=351–376|doi=10.1007/s10963-017-9110-y|date=7 October 2017|doi-access=free}} In 1989, for example, changes in the New Zealand biota, dated to about 1000 AD, were assumed to be linked to human settlement.{{Cite journal|title=The Polynesian settlement of New Zealand in relation to environmental and biotic changes|journal=New Zealand Journal of Ecology|volume=12|pages=115–129|language=en|jstor = 24053254|last1 = McGlone|first1 = M.S|year=1989}} However, by the mid-1990s, as radiocarbon dating methods were improved and sources of error better understood, it was realised that the early dates were not reliable and that the most reliable radiocarbon dates all pointed to a more recent first settlement, closer to 1300 AD or even later,{{Cite journal|last1=Anderson|first1=Atholl |author1-link=Atholl Anderson |last2=Spriggs|first2=Matthew|date=1993|title=Late colonization of East Polynesia |journal=Antiquity |volume=67 |issue=255 |pages=200–217 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00045324|s2cid=162638670 |issn=1745-1744}} In 1999, a sample from the Wairau Bar site gave a "late" age of 1230–1282 AD.{{Cite journal |last1=Jacomb |first1=Chris |last2=Anderson |first2=Atholl |author2-link=Atholl Anderson |last3=Higham|first3=Thomas|date=1999|title=Dating the first New Zealanders: the chronology of Wairau Bar|journal=Antiquity|language=en|volume=73|issue=280|pages=420–427|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00088360|s2cid=161058755 |issn=1745-1744}} which roughly coincided with charcoal and pollen evidence of forest fires that may or may not have been human-lit.{{Cite journal|date=1 July 1999|title=Dating initial Maori environmental impact in New Zealand|journal=Quaternary International|language=en|volume=59|issue=1|pages=5–16|doi=10.1016/S1040-6182(98)00067-6|issn=1040-6182|bibcode=1999QuInt..59....5M|last1=McGlone|first1=M.|last2=Wilmshurst|first2=Janet M.}} The Wairau Bar settlement is known to be a first settler site because both its human remains and its artefacts came from tropical Polynesia.{{Cite web|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/78747892/most-important-archaeological-site-in-new-zealand-continues-to-lure-researchers-to-wairau-bar-marlborough|title=Most important archaeological site in New Zealand continues to lure researchers to Wairau Bar, Marlborough|website=Stuff |language=en|access-date=18 December 2018}}

Against this emerging evidence for late settlement was some seemingly contradictory evidence from the first radiocarbon dating of ancient rat bones in 1996 which gave unusually early dates – as early as 10 AD – and led its author to suggest that rats had been brought here by early human voyagers who did not stay.{{cite journal|last1=Holdaway|first1=Richard N.|year=1999|title=A spatio-temporal model for the invasion of the New Zealand archipelago by the Pacific ratRattus exulans|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand|volume=29|issue=2|pages=91–105|doi=10.1080/03014223.1999.9517586|issn=0303-6758|doi-access=free|bibcode=1999JRSNZ..29...91H }} Some scholars saw the early rat bone dates as confirmation of their theory that humans had settled in New Zealand even earlier than the classic theory had suggested, living in small numbers for a thousand years or so without leaving artefacts or skeletal remains.{{Cite journal|last1=Sutton|first1=DG|last2=Flenley| first2=JR|last3=Li|first3=X|last4=Todd|first4=A|last5=Butler|first5=K|last6=Summers|first6=R|last7=Chester|first7=PI|date=2008|title=The timing of the human discovery and colonization of New Zealand|journal=Quaternary International|volume=184|issue=1|pages=109–121|doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2007.09.025|bibcode=2008QuInt.184..109S}} However, further investigation found that those early rat bone results had been flawed, all coming from one laboratory during a limited time period, while all subsequent dating has found recent arrival times for both rats and humans.{{Cite journal|last1=Wilmshurstl|first1=Janet M.|last2=Higham|first2=Thomas F.G.|date=1 September 2004|title=Using rat-gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans in New Zealand|journal=The Holocene|language=en|volume=14|issue=6|pages=801–806|doi=10.1191/0959683604hl760ft|issn=0959-6836|bibcode=2004Holoc..14..801W|s2cid=128613605}} By 2008, there was little doubt that rats came to New Zealand with Māori no earlier than 1280 AD.{{Cite journal|last1=Worthy|first1=Trevor H.|last2=Higham|first2=Thomas F. G.|last3=Anderson|first3=Atholl |author3-link=Atholl Anderson |last4=Wilmshurst|first4=Janet M.|date=3 June 2008|title=Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=105|issue=22|pages=7676–7680|doi=10.1073/pnas.0801507105|issn=1091-6490|pmid=18523023|pmc=2409139|bibcode=2008PNAS..105.7676W|doi-access=free }} This was confirmed in 2011 by a meta-analysis of dates from throughout the Pacific, which showed a sudden pulse of migration leading to all of New Zealand (including the Chatham Islands) being settled no earlier than c. 1290 AD.{{Cite journal|last1=Wilmshurst|first1=Janet M.|last2=Hunt|first2=Terry L.|last3=Lipo|first3=Carl P.|last4=Anderson|first4=Atholl |author4-link=Atholl Anderson |date=1 February 2011|title=High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume=108|issue=5|pages=1815–1820|doi=10.1073/pnas.1015876108|issn=0027-8424|pmc=3033267|pmid=21187404|bibcode=2011PNAS..108.1815W|doi-access=free }}

While most researchers now use this late-13th-century date,{{Cite journal|last1=Newnham|first1=Rewi|last2=Lowe|first2=David J|last3=Gehrels|first3=Maria|last4=Augustinus|first4=Paul|date=1 July 2018|title=Two-step human–environmental impact history for northern New Zealand linked to late-Holocene climate change|journal=The Holocene|language=en|volume=28|issue=7|pages=1093–1106|doi=10.1177/0959683618761545|issn=0959-6836|bibcode=2018Holoc..28.1093N|hdl=10289/11762|s2cid=135346870|hdl-access=free}} others are revising it upward even further to around 1320 AD or later, based on new evidence from moa egg shells and from the Kaharoa eruption of Mount Tarawera (1314 ± 6 AD), whose tephra forms a geological layer below all well-dated human and rat sites.{{Cite journal|last1=Bunce|first1=Michael|last2=Beavan|first2=Nancy R.|last3=Oskam|first3=Charlotte L.|last4=Jacomb|first4=Christopher|last5=Allentoft|first5=Morten E.|last6=Holdaway|first6=Richard N.|date=7 November 2014|title=An extremely low-density human population exterminated New Zealand moa|journal=Nature Communications|language=en|volume=5|pages=5436|doi=10.1038/ncomms6436|pmid=25378020|issn=2041-1723|bibcode=2014NatCo...5.5436H|doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|date=1 October 2014|title=High-precision dating and ancient DNA profiling of moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) eggshell documents a complex feature at Wairau Bar and refines the chronology of New Zealand settlement by Polynesians|journal=Journal of Archaeological Science|language=en|volume=50|pages=24–30|doi=10.1016/j.jas.2014.05.023|issn=0305-4403|last1=Jacomb|first1=Chris|last2=Holdaway|first2=Richard N.|last3=Allentoft|first3=Morten E.|last4=Bunce|first4=Michael|last5=Oskam|first5=Charlotte L.|last6=Walter|first6=Richard|last7=Brooks|first7=Emma|bibcode=2014JArSc..50...24J |url=http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/23310/}} Some researchers now conclude that the weight of all the radiocarbon and DNA evidence points to New Zealand having been settled rapidly in a mass migration sometime after the Tarawera eruption, somewhere in the decades between 1320 and 1350 CE{{Cite journal|last1=Walter|first1=R|last2=Buckley|first2=H|last3=Jacomb|first3=C|last4=Matisoo-Smith|first4=L|title=Mass Migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|date=2017|volume=30|issue=4|page=351|doi=10.1007/s10963-017-9110-y|doi-access=free}} – which suggests that the "Great Fleet" theory, and the genealogical calculations on which it was based, were not totally inaccurate after all.

The debate over Māori population size has two main areas of interest: how many settlers came to New Zealand and what was the population when European contact occurred. The second number is partly a historical question, and estimated populations have not strayed far from Captain Cook's first estimate of 100,000,{{Cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/history/page-1|title=1. – History – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand|last=Taonga|first=New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu|website=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |language=en|access-date=17 December 2018}} with some researches going up to 150,000. This number, coupled with an inferred low growth rate, has led researchers to require either a large founding population (more than 300 people) or an early settlement date (600–850 AD).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6j1eAwAAQBAJ&q=maori+population+at+a+contact+prehistoric&pg=PT6|title=Te Iwi Maori: Population Past, Present and Projected|last=Pool|first=Ian|author-link=Ian Pool|date=1 October 2013|publisher=Auckland University Press|isbn=9781869406899|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last1=Brewis|first1=Alexandra A.|last2=Molloy|first2=Maureen A.|last3=Sutton|first3=Douglas G.|date=1990|title=Modeling the prehistoric Maori population|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|language=en|volume=81|issue=3|pages=343–356|doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330810304|issn=1096-8644|pmid=2183629}} Therefore, a date of c. 1300 AD requires a mass migration from tropical Polynesia,{{cite journal|last1=Walter|first1=Richard|last2=Buckley|first2=Hallie|last3=Jacomb|first3=Chris|last4=Matisoo-Smith|first4=Elizabeth|year=2017|title=Mass Migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|volume=30|issue=4|pages=351–376|doi=10.1007/s10963-017-9110-y|issn=0892-7537|doi-access=free}} even though mitochondrial DNA implies a medium{{clarify|date=July 2024}} number of approximately 70 women settlers.{{Cite journal|last1=Penny|first1=David|last2=Hatfield|first2=Peter J.|last3=Scrimshaw|first3=Brian J.|last4=Murray-McIntosh|first4=Rosalind P.|date=21 July 1998|title=Testing migration patterns and estimating founding population size in Polynesia by using human mtDNA sequences|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=95|issue=15|pages=9047–9052|doi=10.1073/pnas.95.15.9047|issn=1091-6490|pmid=9671802|pmc=21200|bibcode=1998PNAS...95.9047M|doi-access=free }}

This story is further complicated by the South Island's slow growth rates throughout prehistory. This is because kumara was extremely difficult to grow in the South Island even during warm climatic periods.{{Cite journal|author1=Burtenshaw, M. K. |author2=Harris, G. F. |author3=Davidson, J. |author-link3=Janet Davidson |author4=Leach, F. |date=2003|title=Experimental growing of pre-European cultivators of kumara (sweet potato, Ipomoea Batatas [L.] Lam) at the southern margins of Maori horticulture.|url=https://repository.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/handle/11072/1181|journal=New Zealand Journal of Archaeology|volume=23|pages=161–188}}{{Cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/kumara/page-1|title=1. – Kūmara – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand|last=Taonga|first=New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu|website=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |language=en|access-date=17 December 2018}} There is evidence that the "little ice age" affected New Zealand and caused a shrinking of the population. The extent of this cold period in New Zealand is unknown, but it may have peaked in the early 18th century.{{Cite journal|last=Winkler|first=Stefan|year=2000|title=The 'Little Ice Age' maximum in the Southern Alps, New Zealand: preliminary results at Mueller Glacier|journal=The Holocene|volume=10|issue=5|pages=643–647|bibcode=2000Holoc..10..643W|doi=10.1191/095968300666087656|s2cid=131695554}} By 1886 diseases like measles, war and disruption led to a Māori population of about 40,000 and 2,000 in the North and South Islands respectively.{{Cite web|url=http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/digitised-collections/census-collection.aspx|title=Census: 1871–1916|website=archive.stats.govt.nz|language=en-nz|access-date=20 December 2018|archive-date=10 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910143514/http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/digitised-collections/census-collection.aspx|url-status=dead}}

File:Ohau Point Seal Colony. New Zealand.FZ200 (14315911510).jpg were a more important food source than moa.]]

File:Pounamu objects, Canterbury Museum, 2016-01-27.jpg

Māori culture has been in constant adaptation to New Zealand's changing environment. From the late 1950s onward the terms "Archaic" and "Classic" culture have been used to describe the early and late phases of pre-contact Māori, with "Archaic" replacing the older term "moa hunter" as the hunter-gatherer society lasted beyond the megafauna (as with Eurasia's Mesolithic).

The Archaic and Classic labels were intentionally chronological and not descriptive. They did not offer a definitive definition of either cultural period that could be used across time and space; particularly in locations like the southern South Island, where Classic tribes may migrate to regions where only an Archaic lifestyle was possible. Various transitional cultural artifacts and models have been proposed; however, there is still a dearth of evidence for a clear middle phase.{{Cite journal|last1=Anderson|first1=Atholl |author1-link=Atholl Anderson |date=2016|title=The making of the Maori middle ages |url= http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=570353694439099;res=IELIND|journal=Journal of New Zealand Studies|language=EN|issue=23|pages=2|doi=10.26686/jnzs.v0i23.3987|doi-access=free|access-date=17 December 2018|archive-date=24 March 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190324191315/https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=570353694439099;res=IELIND |url-status=dead}} Currently the Archaic culture is seen as semi nomadic hunter-gatherers with small gardens and populations, while the later Classic culture had large gardens and fortified permanent villages. Kumara cultivation was limited to the north until the Classic period, when building of storage pits and gardening methods allowed its storage over winter further south. In many sites in New Zealand the absence of a middle phase or the constraint of only two options has led to other interpretations, including a sevenfold evolution of boom and bust cycles.{{cite journal|last1=Leach|first1=B. Foss|year=1981|title=The prehistory of the Southern Wairarapa|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand|volume=11|issue=1|pages=11–33|doi=10.1080/03036758.1981.10419449|bibcode=1981JRSNZ..11...11L |issn=0303-6758}} Growing kumara would have been just possible in the north of the South Island during some climatic conditions.

File:Early Maori objects from Wairau Bar, Canterbury Museum, 2016-01-27.jpg (top left) from the Taupō Volcanic Zone.]]

File:Waka from Taieri Plains Otago New Zealand.jpg

As the early settlers to New Zealand came in great numbers with supplies for planting numerous crop types it is believed that it was a planned migration to a known location. However while there is some speculation from non archaeological sources that migration to New Zealand continued throughout the Archaic period,{{Cite book|url=https://www.infona.pl//resource/bwmeta1.element.springer-f21b82e0-fe96-320d-9814-c37434f57957|title=Dating the Last Migration to New Zealand|last1=Pearce|first1=F. M.|last2=Pearce|first2=Charles E. M.|isbn=9789048138265|language=en|date=17 June 2010|publisher=Springer }} evidence is absent in the archaeological record, and there is also no evidence for domestic pigs and chickens from the Pacific making it to New Zealand - something would have been expected if trade networks had been built.

The early Māori did, however, maintain the technology for long sea voyages – reaching the Chatham Islands about 1500 CE, where they developed into the separate Moriori people.{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Davis |first1=Denise |last2=Solomon |first2=Māui |title=Moriori – Origins of the Moriori people |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/moriori/page-1 |encyclopedia=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |date=8 February 2005 |access-date=26 July 2023}}

The earliest archaeological sites in New Zealand have implements from tropical Polynesia.{{Cite journal|last1=Marshall|first1=Bruce|last2=MacDonald|first2=Judith|last3=Fyfe|first3=Roger|last4=Findlater|first4=Amy|last5=Davidson|first5=Janet|date=2011|title=Connections with Hawaiki: the Evidence of a Shell Tool from Wairau Bar, Marlborough, New Zealand|url=https://pacificarchaeology.org/index.php/journal/article/view/54|journal=Journal of Pacific Archaeology|language=en|volume=2|issue=2|pages=93–102|doi=10.70460/jpa.v2i2.54 |issn=1179-4712}} There is also evidence that obsidian was traded throughout New Zealand from soon after arrival. However it was only in the sixteenth century that pounamu (jade) was traded around New Zealand, with a different supply network to the obsidian.{{Cite journal|last1=Bowron-Muth|first1=Sreymony|last2=Jacomb|first2=Chris|last3=Walter|first3=Richard|date=2010|title=Colonisation, mobility and exchange in New Zealand prehistory|journal=Antiquity|language=en|volume=84|issue=324|pages=497–513|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00066734|s2cid=162930918 |issn=1745-1744}} Earthquakes caused changing living patterns and the movement of people.{{cite journal|last1=Goff|first1=James R.|last2=McFadgen|first2=Bruce G.|year=2003|title=Large earthquakes and the abandonment of prehistoric coastal settlements in 15th century New Zealand|journal=Geoarchaeology|volume=18|issue=6|pages=609–623|doi=10.1002/gea.10082|bibcode=2003Gearc..18..609G |s2cid=129306879 |issn=0883-6353}}

The Māori language has changed little in the 700 years since it separated from Cook Islands Māori.

The ability of pre-contact Māori to manage resources and foresee ecological collapses has been the source of much debate.{{Cite web|url=http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-fungi/ecosystems/prehistoric-settlement|title=Prehistoric settlement|website=Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research|language=en|access-date=17 December 2018|archive-date=21 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200121014023/https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-fungi/ecosystems/prehistoric-settlement|url-status=dead}} Natural fires were rare in New Zealand, yet much of the country was covered in dry forest, early Māori didn't protect fire-prone areas and there is no evidence of systematic burning of less fire-prone ones.{{Cite journal|last1=Perry|first1=George L. W.|last2=Wilmshurst|first2=Janet M.|last3=McGlone|first3=Matt S.|last4=Napier|first4=Aaron|date=2012|title=Reconstructing spatial vulnerability to forest loss by fire in pre-historic New Zealand|journal=Global Ecology and Biogeography|language=en|volume=21|issue=10|pages=1029–1041|doi=10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00745.x|bibcode=2012GloEB..21.1029P |issn=1466-8238}} Many New Zealand species may have been heading for slow extinction after Polynesian settlement. The extinction of the mega fauna (moa) seems to have occurred quickly, within 100 years.{{Cite journal|last1=Jacomb|first1=C.|last2=Holdaway|first2=R. N.|date=24 March 2000|title=Rapid Extinction of the Moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes): Model, Test, and Implications|journal=Science|language=en|volume=287|issue=5461|pages=2250–2254|doi=10.1126/science.287.5461.2250|issn=1095-9203|pmid=10731144|bibcode=2000Sci...287.2250H}} The first settlers came to New Zealand from tropical Polynesia and adapted to a temperate environment while preserving many of their old practices. Some conservative use of tropical Polynesian methods lasted well into the Archaic period.{{Cite journal|date=1961|title=New Zealand Archaeology|journal=Antiquity|language=en|volume=37|issue=145|pages=65–68|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00106155|s2cid=246042742 |issn=1745-1744}}

Historical archaeology in New Zealand started late and grew slowly; it was only by the 1960s that European structures were being systematically excavated.{{Cite journal|last1=Ritchie|first1=Neville A.|title=An Introduction to Historical Archaeology in New Zealand|year=1991|journal=Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology|language=en|volume=9|pages=3–5|jstor=29543280}}{{Cite journal|journal=Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology|volume=9|pages=6–13|language=en|jstor = 29543281|last1 = Smith|first1 = IAN W.G|title=The Development of Historical Archaeology in New Zealand {{not a typo|1921–1990}}|year=1991}} One example is the evidence left by Taranaki Māori political prisoners who worked pounamu in the Dunedin jail in the late 1800s.{{Cite journal|last=Petchey|first=Peter|date=22 February 2015|title=Evidence of the Working of Greenstone by Taranaki Maori Prisoners in the Dunedin Gaol|url=https://www.pacificarchaeology.org/index.php/journal/article/view/163|journal=Journal of Pacific Archaeology|language=en|volume=6|issue=1|pages=70–79|doi=10.70460/jpa.v6i1.163 |issn=1179-4712}} there is also interest in the study of post-contact Māori sites.{{Cite journal|journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society|volume=105|issue=4|pages=411–439|language=en|jstor = 20706681|last1 = Bedford|first1 = Stuart|title=Post-Contact Maori—The Ignored Component in New Zealand Archaeology|year=1996}}

Early archaeology in New Zealand was performed by anthropologists and private collectors of Māori artifacts. Many sites were destroyed by careless scavenging or poorly documented research.{{Cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/archaeology|title=ARCHAEOLOGY|last1=McLintock|first1=Alexander Hare|last2=Lawrence James Paul|first2=B. SC|website=An encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, 1966.|language=en|access-date=20 December 2018|last3=Taonga|first3=New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu}} Systematical research was first conducted by the museums from the main cities, followed by anthropology departments in the universities of Auckland and Otago. In 1955 the New Zealand Archaeological Association was founded.{{Cite web|url=https://nzarchaeology.org/about-nzaa/about-us|title=About Us|website=NZ Archaeological Association|language=en-NZ|access-date=20 December 2018}}

During this time in New Zealand the study of Māori oral tradition was more influential than archaeological techniques. The coming of the Māori "Great Fleet" to New Zealand was inferred to be in 1350 AD solely from traditional evidence (similar to modern estimates from carbon dating).

In the 21st century high resolution Landsat data was being used to interpret archaeological sites,{{Cite journal|last=Jones|first=Ben|date=2017|title=High Resolution LiDAR data for Landscape Archaeology in New Zealand|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319991400|journal=Archaeology in New Zealand|volume=60|pages=35–47}} although there was some doubt about the effectiveness of some modern tools.{{cite journal |last1=Bickler and Low |title=Lies, damned lies and geophysics": Uses and abuses of remote sensing techniques in New Zealand heritage management |journal=Archaeol. NZ |date=2007 |issue=50 |pages=195–210}} Archaeology departments conduct research from the university of Otago, Auckland and Canterbury. New Zealand archaeology is published in the Journal of Pacific Archaeology, the Journal of the Polynesian Society and in other international journals.

{{See also|Heritage New Zealand}}

Exceptional archaeological sites are included in the national register (administered by Heritage New Zealand) in five groups: historic places (Category 1 and 2), historic areas, Wāhi Tūpuna (practical sites), Wāhi Tapu (spiritual sites) and Wahi Tapu areas.{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/about-the-list|title=About the Register|publisher=Heritage New Zealand|access-date=19 November 2018}} New Zealand has thousands of pre-contact sites, many of which are documented by the Historic Places Trust. Only a small fraction of these have detailed published archaeological reports. For example, in the South Island there are 550 rock art sites and 107 in the North Island and 6956 Pā in all New Zealand.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10866488|title=Rock art needs protection: expert|last=Morton|first=Jamie|date=19 February 2013|work=The New Zealand Herald |access-date=18 December 2018|language=en-NZ|issn=1170-0777}} The types of features present in New Zealand pre European archaeology are pā, storage pits, gardens (stone rows and banks), house floors, terraces, trenches, umu (earth ovens), middens, quarries, rock art and changes to the local flora.

{{incomplete list|date=December 2018}}

• Atholl Anderson
• Foss Leach
• Jack Golson
• Janet Davidson
• Roger Green
• Sue Bulmer

• Australian archaeology
• Archaeology of Samoa
• History of New Zealand
• History of the Cook Islands
• Tahiti

{{reflist|30em}}

{{New Zealand topics}}

{{Archaeology}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Zealand Archaeology}}

Category:Archaeology in Oceania