By 3 News online staff
AUT history professor Dr Paul Moon has described new books questioning the Maori people's status as the original New Zealanders as "poisonous" and "reckless speculation dressed up as scholarship".
To The Ends of the Earth, by Maxwell Hill, argues that Greeks and Egyptians settled New Zealand 2000 years ago, and that Maui was a Greek explorer.
The Great Divide, by Investigate magazine's Ian Wishart, argues that not only were there pre-Maori civilisations in New Zealand, but that academics have deliberately misrepresented the country's ancient past.
"This is, of course, preposterous," says Dr Moon, who himself has published several books on New Zealand history.
Dr Moon says in the past academics have generally ignored books like these, but they can no longer afford to.
“The reason why these books are so poisonous”, he says, “is that their theories are starting to enter the bloodstream of the popular historical imagination and are beginning to circulate with greater force.”
The authors “doggedly follow any stray scent if they suspect it will support their argument, and yet they have turned their backs on a vast amount of available research which contradicts their theories", says Dr Moon.
3 News