History of Dunedin - Pre-European History

Pre-European History

Archaeological evidence shows the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand occurred around AD 1250–1300, with population concentrated along the south east coast. A camp site at Kaikai's Beach, near Otago Heads, has been dated about that time. From this Moa Hunter (Archaic) phase of Māori culture there are numerous sites in the Dunedin area, including ones interpreted as permanent villages at Little Papanui and Harwood Township in the 14th century. With reduced moa numbers the population slumped but grew again with the evolution of a new Classic culture producing fortified villages (pa), the one at Pukekura (Taiaroa Head) being established about 1650.

In this period there were Māori settlements in what is now central Dunedin (Otepoti), above Anderson's Bay (Puketai), on Te Rauone Beach (Te Ruatitiko and Tahakopa), around Otago Harbour. There were also settlements at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach), Purakaunui, Mapoutahi (Goat Island Peninsula) and Huriawa (Karitane Peninsula) to the north, and at Taieri Mouth and Otokia (Henley) to the south, all inside the present boundaries of Dunedin.

Central Dunedin was still occupied about 1785 but was abandoned before 1826. Purakaunui and Mapoutahi were abandoned late in the 18th century and Whareakeake about 1825.

Māori tradition speaks of Rakaihautu excavating Kaikorai Valley in ancient time, of Kahui Tipua and Te Rapuwai, ancient peoples of shadowy memory, and then Waitaha, followed by Kati Mamoe, the latter arriving late in the 16th century, and then Kai Tahu ('Ngai Tahu' in modern standard Māori) from about the middle of the 17th century. European accounts of these arrivals have often represented them as invasions. Modern scholarship has cast doubt on that and they are probably really migrations, incidentally attended by bloodshed, like the later European arrival.Personalities from this time and later, such as Taoka and Te Wera, Tarewai and Te Rakiihia are identified with events at Huriawa, Mapoutahi, Pukekura and Otepoti and have descendants known in the historical period. Te Rakiihia died and was buried somewhere in what is now central Dunedin about 1785.

The sealer John Boultbee recorded in the 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.