THE first human settlers in New Zealand embarked on a hunting “blitzkrieg”,
wiping out the islands’ 11 species of giant flightless moas in less than a
century. Researchers previously thought that the birds were gradually driven to
extinction over several hundred years.
Richard Holdaway of Palaecol Research and Christopher Jacomb of the
Canterbury Museum, both in Christchurch, say that the latest carbon-dating of
artefacts found on the islands suggests that settlers first arrived around 1280,
300 years later than had been thought. The last firm evidence of living moas
comes less than a hundred years later.
Holdaway and Jacomb believe…
