Ngapuhi's David Rankin claims other people arrived before Maori in NZ. Evidence supports this. It just hasn't been officially clarified. Dr Laracy is most likely out by a couple of hundred years. It has now been accepted that the ancestors of today's Maori came to NZ from 1200-1300AD from East Polynesia - today's Rarotonga and the Society Islands. I have read some of these claims. Old Maori spoke of the red-haired, fairskinned "fairy people" in the bush. They were here in NZ before the ancestors of Maori arrived. Maori is not a race as such but a collection of tribes that may have come from various islands , and were called that to distinguish them from the Pakeha sealers and whalers who arrived in the late 18th century. Maori broadly speaking, were the "ordinary people". There is a hell-bent rush to have all claims heard by the Waitangi Tribunal before somebody actually come's up with some factual evidence that other people, such as the Waitaha in the South Island as well, arrived before the East Polynesian ancesters of today's Maori. Remember Ngai Tahu have exclusive rights to greenstone from West Coast rivers. Descendants of Waitaha could dispute this too