Māori: The First 500 Years

The first 500 years of Māori settlement in Aotearoa saw significant, dynamic changes to how people lived; changes that challenge the idea of Māori culture as something carved in stone.

There's sometimes a temptation to think of Māori as a people "frozen in time" - that Māori culture and ways of life were unchanged between the time they arrived in Aotearoa sometime before 1300AD until Captain Cook and the Endeavour arrived in 1769.

But that's totally wrong! In 500 years, any people are going to change.... A lot!

Watch the video version of the episode here

In this episode we look at:

• How Māori arrived in Aotearoa.
• How the first few generations seem to have lived.
• Evidence of Aotearoa's "first capital city" at Wairau Bar and the role it may have played in early Māori society.
• How the extinction of megafauna and a cooling climate seem to have triggered major changes in Māori ways of life.
• Why Māori had different lifestyles in different parts of Aotearoa.
• How Māori traded and settled disputes.
• How the end of the "little ice age" seemed to trigger more changes in Māori ways of life.

For more on this subject:

• Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History by Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris
• The Making of the Māori Middle Ages by Atholl Anderson, Journal of New Zealand Studies
• Māori - Te Ara

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details