ISBN10: 0143018574, ISBN13: 9780143018575, [publisher: Penguin, Auckland] Softcover In the late 1990s Professor Kerry Howe was asked to write a book responding to a controversy then current about the origins of the Maori people and the possibility that there had been earlier settlers established in NZ than the Maori. Interestingly, this debate has more recently undergone something of a revival, with various theories regarding Maori and pre-Maori societies discussed. In his introduction the author said that during Cook's voyages it was concluded that Polynesians originally came from the region now called South East Asia and that. "In essence this is also what the modern academic view tells us." Kerry Howe conducts his investigation over eight chapters which traverse "enlightment sciences" from the 1760s to the 1860s, "mainstream ideas" 1860s to the 1940s, "current ideas" ranging over global and near and remote Oceania as origin points including artifact, biological and linguistic trails as well as voyaging under deliberate or drift methods. navigation, maritime technology and exploration, chapter six examines the practicalities of American, Spanish or other connections as well as from 'sunken continents", chapter seven explores the "new learning or the old learning" while the final chapter on Maori origins says." the problem for those who wish to insist on human presence in New Zealand 2000 years ...