New theory in skull mystery

Forensic anthropologist Robin Watt reckons Wairarapa's mystery skull could be that of a Dutch settler shipwreck victim a theory a local historian involved in the original coroner's inquest thinks is unlikely.
"It's theoretically possible it doesn't rely on angels and spaceships but it seems unlikely to me that a boat full of settlers could go missing without there being a record of it," Wairarapa archivist and historian Gareth Winter said.
Mr Winter said there were other, more likely, interpretations and said he had no quarrel with the science.
"The carbon dating is presumably accurate but that doesn't place the skull in New Zealand at any particular time," he said.
Dr Watt said the sex, age and ethnicity of the skull were scientifically conclusive and the only point of academic speculation was how the 40-to-45-year-old female skull came to be found in New Zealand where it was turned up by Featherston man Sam Tobin on the banks of the Ruamahanga River in 2004.
He said the skull had been carbon dated twice, with both tests putting its origins between 1619 and 1689 a time frame which both overlapped and pre-dated the voyages of European explorers Abel Tasman in 1642 and Captain James Cook in 1769.
"The date of the skull is still decades and decades before sealers and whalers arrived, the first of whom came to the South Pacific in 1788.
"Mitochondrial DNA testing shows the skull contains the genetic factor H, which is European, so the problem becomes 'how did a European woman aged 40 to 45 end up in New Zealand some time between Tasman and Cook?," Dr Watt said.
"As far as we know, women were never taken on board voyages of discovery. We know that from surviving crew lists.
"My theory is that she was not on a voyage of discovery because the people who were most active in colonising at the time were Dutch and had been exploring the west and south coasts of Australia so they knew that part of the world.
"I believe she was probably on a settlers' boat bound for the Dutch East Indies with the rest of her family and I presume she was headed for Batavia or what is now called Jakarta in Indonesia," Dr Watt said.
He said the ship was probably entangled in a storm and blown off course and presumably wrecked in New Zealand.
He said this postulation was fascinating because it made the idea of a further discovery of New Zealand after Tasman and Cook a less remarkable theory.