Hoax, history rewritten or hallowed Maori skull?

A South Wairarapa hapu spokesman has flown in the face of scientific opinion claiming a mystery skull, thought to be that of a pre-colonisation European women, is probably Maori.
"It is resolved in my mind that it's a Maori skull and needs to be treated with dignity & I don't want it to become a curio," Haami Te Whaiti, speaking on behalf of South Wairarapa hapu Ngati Hinewaka, said.
Mr Te Whaiti is also Maori curator at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, where the skull is being held, and has tried to put the kibosh on news media gathering any further images of the skull.
He said he accepts the results of radiocarbon dating evidence suggesting the skull is roughly 300 years old but said the contention that it may be European needs re-evaluating.
"Before anyone goes off choosing evidence based on an inconclusive scientific study they should get a second opinion," Mr Te Whaiti said.
In February a radiocarbon test on a sample of the skull found it to be between 262 and 330 years old at the time of its discovery, suggesting the person died sometime between 1674 and 1742. The first European to sight Wairarapa was Captain James Cook in 1770, Wairarapa archivist Gareth Winter said.
"When you read the scientific evidence it's all couched in 'probablies'.
"They say it's probably a European female & if the data is right it can't be European according to any record we have," he said.
Because of the inconclusive nature of the evidence, Mr Winter said the case is ripe for any number of new historical interpretations.
"The crypto-historians will have a field day with this because it ties in with other odd stories that have never been properly explained.
"You can't have it being 300 years old and European, that's what the archivist in me says, but I could see the romantic would want to find something different."
Mr Winter couldn't rule out the possibility the skull had been brought into New Zealand, "if the date and the European thing is right it has to have been brought in somehow but how that would happen I can't imagine".
"It's a mystery wrapped up in an enigma," Mr Winter said.
A police coronial inquest report said the skull was discovered in October 2004 by Samuel Tobin, 16, as he was walking the family dogs on the Ruamahanga River bank near Pukio Road, 20 minutes southeast of Featherston.
The report said Mr Tobin saw something white protruding out of the shingle, which he had at first presumed to be a cow's skull.
On turning it over he realised it was a human skull. He then replaced it, went home and notified police.
The story has spurred global intrigue with many journalists taking the angle the case could rewrite New Zealand's history.
The "mystery skull" was the last inquest for Wairarapa coroner Jock Kershaw who appeared inside Aratoi with the skull when featured in TV news bulletins on Tuesday night.
Mr Te Whaiti said yesterday he was unaware the skull had been on television and said filming it was insensitive.
He declined to be photographed with the skull inside Aratoi when asked by the Times-Age.
"The media have confused and overlapped two sets of inconclusive theories in an attempt to beat the story up," Mr Te Whaiti said.
Yesterday, he asked Aratoi's acting director Bronwyn Reid to bar news media from filming or photographing the skull.
"Haami has rung me very perturbed about what has happened and would like it to be stopped it's a very sensitive issue for iwi," Ms Reid said.
"I agree with him and believe it shouldn't be treated in a disrespectful way when the probability is that it's a Maori skull," she said.
Ms Reid said she thought Aratoi's custody of the skull was inappropriate and was unsure who was responsible for it.
"The responsibility for the skull is going to have to be passed on to someone and I believe it should be passed on to local hapu and marae," Mr Te Whaiti said.
Soon after it was discovered Masterton police sent the skull to Auckland forensic pathologists who concluded the skull was not Maori but probably Caucasian in origin.
"It is possible to differentiate Maori and European origins from a skull but there's possibly some reasons why those pathologists took the view they did.
"It's possible but improbable that it's a European.
"I believe the forensics guy was influenced by the fact that there appeared to be a bullet hole when it was first examined that has since been disproved," Mr Te Whaiti said referring to a November ballistics report by Environmental Science and Research concluding the small hole to the skull "was inconsistent with that caused by a projectile".
Mr Te Whaiti said if the skull was proved conclusively to be Maori it would be repatriated and a tangi would be held.