Aborigines in New Zealand first, Maoris come later

What if aboriginal peoples from 65.000 years back first settled in New Zealnd. Then, thousands of years later, the Polynesians come as OTL to the then Archaic Islands. Would they intermix ? What would the effect on the megafauna be, if humans come much earlier ?
 
How Aboriginals even would come to New Zealand? Had them even good enough boats?

But if Aboriginals can somehow arrive to New Zealand, they might hunt all animals and use all plants so might be that Maoris find pretty deserted islands.
 

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What if aboriginal peoples from 65.000 years back first settled in New Zealand. Then, thousands of years later, the Polynesians come as OTL to the then Archaic Islands. Would they intermix ? What would the effect on the megafauna be, if humans come much earlier ?
It's much more realistic to have the Kanaks of New Caledonia come given the fact that Y chromosomes found in Maori have a significant share of Papuan ancestry and given the fact that the current perfectly flow from New Caledonia it's closest major neighbor and New Zealand

How Aboriginals even would come to New Zealand? Had them even good enough boats?

But if Aboriginals can somehow arrive to New Zealand, they might hunt all animals and use all plants so might be that Maoris find pretty deserted islands.

Sundaland populations were apparently able to travel 100km of open sea so it's not impossible to follow the current between AUS and NZ
 
How Aboriginals even would come to New Zealand? Had them even good enough boats?

But if Aboriginals can somehow arrive to New Zealand, they might hunt all animals and use all plants so might be that Maoris find pretty deserted islands.

Good point, at the time that the ancestors of the Aborigines began to arrive in Australia, I don't think that geography would have let them get to New Zealand.
 
Interesting. A 65,000 year isolated population. We can assume the Moa would go pretty quickly, followed by the Kiwi, the Tuatara, and any vulnerable or accessible bird population. After the first thousand years, any remaining birds would be the small agile flyers, skilled at avoiding humans.

So what are people eating? Fish, seals, and seabirds - sea protein. I expect that the seabirds would all be hunted out - from accessing their rookeries. Would the seals last? Maybe, maybe not.

It would be a feast and famine situation, with probably a thinly distributed population concentrating and descending on haul outs during breeding season. The key would be some way of storing the meat surplus.

Would there be an impetus to develop agriculture from the very meager botanical resources? Would any of the botanical resources be productive enough, regular enough and adaptable enough for agriculture?

Distinctive ethnic groups can emerge after only a few thousand years.

What sort of ethnicity would emerge with 65,000 years of isolation? Would we see pygmies? Would we see tall, slender, elfin giants with slow but incredibly long lives? Cattlemen with thick teeth, pot bellies, endlessly chewing their way through barely nutritious greens?
 
Possibly decimation of native animals for food. They might even abandon NZ due to a lack of food - there were never a lot of game/farmable animals here, or native crops for that matter.

Also they'd have to contend with regular large earthquakes, and some rather large volcanoes going off

eg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oruanui_eruption

" Tephra from the eruption covered much of the central North Island with ignimbrite up to 200 metres (660 ft) deep. Ashfall affected most of New Zealand, with even an 18 cm (7 in) ash layer deposited on the Chatham Islands, 1,000 km (620 mi) away. "
 
What sort of ethnicity would emerge with 65,000 years of isolation? Would we see pygmies? Would we see tall, slender, elfin giants with slow but incredibly long lives? Cattlemen with thick teeth, pot bellies, endlessly chewing their way through barely nutritious greens?

Due lack of food there would be probably pygmi population.
 
Due lack of food there would be probably pygmi population.

But then again, you might require humans crossing large territories to find enough to eat. So you might find tall wanderers, slow metabolisms, long long lives and very slow reproduction.
 
IIRC the current flow in the Tasman Sea rather make it harder to get from Australia to NZ with primitive sea going technology. It is apparently a bit easier to go the way the early Polynesians went. Especially as they can sort of island hop through the Kermadecs.
 
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....pygmies aren't pygmies because they don't have enough to eat.

True enough. Or at least I think it's true enough - I really don't know what environmental factor drove the sature of pygmies.

But Island Dwarfism and Island Giantism are well known phenomena. Island Dwarfism is considered responsible for Homo Florensis. New Zealand is large enough, but barren enough that it could go either way.

I'm intrigued by the thought of a human population in isolation in a place like New Zealand for 65,000 years. I'm almost certain that they'd diverge strongly from the norm, but that I'm not sure what directions.

There's a good chance that the Maori would find something that we might not see as entirely human, by our narrow standards.
 
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