Māori settlement of New Zealand

Timeline

1. c. 1280–1314North Island of New Zealand · North IslandThe Polynesian rat arrived with people and canoes. Dating of rat bones and gnawed seeds and seed husks points to human activity by about 1280; a 2022 study placed North Island settlement around 1250–1275. There are currently no confirmed human remains, artifacts, or buildings earlier than the Tarawera eruption of about 1314.
2. c. 1320–1350Wairau Bar · South IslandArchaeological and genetic evidence favors placing the main migration pulse in the first half of the 14th century. Early sites such as Wairau Bar show material culture of Eastern Polynesian origin. The 'Great Fleet of 1350' hypothesis, assembled in the late 19th century, is not reliable history; the canoe traditions of each tribe should be understood separately.
3. c. 1300–1400South Island of New Zealand · South IslandEarly settlers cleared forests, grew kūmara, and hunted large birds such as moa on both islands. Moa populations declined rapidly after human settlement, an archaeological record of colonization's ecological impact, but this cannot be written as a precise chronology of 1343–1348.