Who found New Zealand first?
The discovery of a yellowing, cracked skull on a riverbank in New Zealands North Island has baffled scientists. Their research has shown the skull belonged to a European woman who lived about 270 years ago a century before the first known arrival of white settlers in the country. The skull, found near the country’s capital, Wellington, dates back from 1742 decades before Cook’s Pacific expedition arrived in 1769. The discovery was made by a boy walking his dog on the bank of a river in the Wairarapa region of the North Island, an area settled by Europeans only after the establishment of a colony by the New Zealand Company in 1840. Dr Robin Watt, a forensic anthropologist called in by police who investigated the discovery, said yesterday: “It’s a real mystery, it really is. “We’ve got the problem of how did this woman get here? Who was she? “I recommended they do carbon date on it and, of course, they came up with that amazing result.” The mystery of the skull, found four years ago, was
