New Zealand History - The Truth 10

Koru PA New Plymouth

Here's the official plaque, which sits by the gateway entry into Koru PA in, New Plymouth, Taranaki. The plaque shows a drawing of the large archaeological site, with its high stone walls, tiered multi-levels and souterrains (subterranean dwellings or storerooms). This is a huge construction, requiring considerable labour and stone working expertise to build, with some stone walls formerly extending upward around 14 feet high. It's one of several, "stone PAs"(degree of stonework dependent on the availability of suitable stone) surviving in the immediate vicinity...a couple of which are huge. The plaque at Koru PA reads: These lands formed one of the earliest Maori settlements in New Zealand and were probably occupied from about 1000 AD until 1826 when the Waikato drove the Taranaki tribes southward away from the home of their ancestors.

Eh what?...don't you mean "occupied from about 1200-1300 AD" or thereafter when 100-200 people, including 50 women, initiated "a sudden surge of human impacts" upon the landscape of New Zealand? Prof. Nigel Prickett, who did archaeological assessments and drawings of the Koru site, leaves the door slightly ajar in suggesting that "some believe" the site might not have been built until 1350 AD. Is he referring to Professor John Flenley and his entourage, or the linguistics experts who place first arrivals at 1200-1300 AD?

Did Professor Flenley and the geneticists doing "remarkable detective work" forget about the very early epoch construction of Koru PA and the many other large stone walled structures in the region, several of which have "British-type" standing stone observatories sitting adjacent to them? Let's weigh Prof. Flenley's logic in the balance and see how it stacks up in the real world:
•100-200 people including 50 women paddled or sailed down from Central Polynesia in, say, 1200 AD and made landfall in New Zealand. Within one hundred years or so their numbers were large enough to leave significant traces of their presence across the expansive landscape.


•By 1300 AD or so necessity dictated that they commence building large defensive forts for self protection and survival. A programme was initiated that would see the final construction of several thousand defended PAs (fortresses) throughout New Zealand. Large Forts like Koru PA and, more especially, Turuturumokai PA on the other side of Taranaki in Hawera, would have required, perhaps, thousands of defenders to stop any breach of the large perimeters and constant vigilance for protection against incursion attempts by an enemy. Turuturumokai PA is, quite simply, huge and formidable. One unmarked PA in bush near Koru PA would occupy a similar amount of area as Turuturumokai and require many thousands of defenders. It also shows evidence of a labyrinth network of underground tunnels. Oral traditions say that Koru PA was built by the "friendly Maoris" (a title used to describe the earlier, Patupaiarehe people...many of whom fitted the description of Europeans).


• Besides the large multi-tiered fortresses (built in a very similar style to pre-Celtic hill forts of England, Wales and Scotland or, sometimes, as Irish Rath/ Cashels), complete with high maintenance, wooden palisaded walls atop the (oftimes) stone lined embankment walls, the fortress builders also found time and sufficient numbers of available workers to build large canal and drainage systems all across the country. To this endeavour add many thousands of other huge excavations and structures, of varying sorts, throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand.. This mammoth work was (supposedly recently) completed despite the ever present threat of warfare and a large infant mortality rate (due to disease and malnutrition), culminating in an estimated population count of only 100,000 Maori, spread across the entirety of New Zealand (a country the size of Great Britain), by the dawn of the nineteenth century.


• So, focusing on Koru PA alone and moving the date as far forward as we conceivably can (despite the 1000 AD date of construction suggested by the DOC sign at the entrance)...wha t are the possibilities? Surely, not all of the estimated 100-200 original immigrants, including 50 women, went straight to Taranaki and set up camp. Professor Flenley and the geneticists are suggesting that there was so much competition for resources within 100-years of arrival (in that very fertile Taranaki region) that huge fortresses needed to be built (several miles inland from the coastal fishing and food gathering resources) for protection of inhabitants and their crops? Under the best case scenario possible, starting with 100-200 people settling somewhere in the country in 1200 AD (presumably in the north where taro and yams grew well in the warmer climate) how many people would there have been by 1300 AD or so from a group of 50 original mothers? How many people would it have taken to build Koru PA, assuming it had to be built in haste and urgency, as the prospect of war and invasion had revealed itself as a real threat to security and personal safety? The large area plateau size of Koru PA should reflect the number of people needing protection within its secure boundaries, just as the souterrain tunnel system would reflect the amounts of food (taro, kumera sweet potato or the more general "taewa" varieties... the 23 known species of pre-colonial potatoes found in New Zealand that had originated in South America in antiquity) needing to be stored for a long siege.

The truth is that Koru PA, or the other great fortifications nearby, are early era structures that predate Maori by a very long time. Koru is, essentially, a Rath/ Cashel, typical of some of Ireland's earliest known defensive enclosure structures with their souterrain (Rua) tunnel systems. This building method is utterly non-Polynesian, but typically early European...as is the stone observatory beside Koru PA, which is a Northern European cultural expression. Souterrain burrow hillocks or fortress sites with networking subterranean tunnel systems are found throughout Taranaki and greater New Zealand. They are the product of people who built their structures in a very ancient Irish style. The population of Taranaki was once huge...before the coming of the Maori. The late arriving Polynesians/ Melanesians never had sufficient population to build even 10% of the ancient residual structures and huge excavations that dot the New Zealand landscape, or even the laboriously built, early epoch "Rath-type" fortress structures of Taranaki District (many of which were virtually surrounded by stream moats situated at the base of steep, high embankment walls).

I challenge the experts to explain how such a massive amount of work (giant excavations, etc., often through solid rock) could have been accomplished in this country, by so few people in such a short passage of centuries (in accordance with the academic population model). I challenge them to explain why so many large PAs were built in very early eras for the protection of such, potentially, small populations. By the expert's model, how many people were available to build Koru PA (or the other huge structures within a stone's throw of this fortress) in, say, 1350 AD? That in itself should be sufficient to send them back to the think tank or drawing board, as their circa 1300 AD theory is unworkable in the extreme...and while they're at it...why not ask a "real" Kaumatua what the history of this country was or who the ancient Patupaiarehe people truly were.