New migration findings

New research led by Janet Wilmshurst from Landcare Research, and Atholl Anderson, from the Australian National University has found that New Zealand was colonised by humans more recently — and faster — than previously thought. Research suggests settlers arrived in the French Polynesian Society Islands, about AD15, 4 years later than previously accepted. Previous estimates of when New Zealand was first settled go back 1 years. Wilmshurst said: “Whereas species declines were thought to have occurred over a thousand years or more, it now appears that in most cases several hundred years was all it took.” Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the findings came from analysis of 14 radiocarbon dates from 47 islands – more than 1 times the number of radiocarbon dates of previous studies.