Status of mystery skull a bone of contention

The status of Wairarapa's mystery skull remains in limbo, with the national coroner's office effectively saying it's no longer its problem.
In response to a Times-Age query about who now has responsibility for the skull, which has generated worldwide news media interest, Glenn Dobson, southern regional manager for the Coronial Services Unit of the Ministry of Justice, said officially the case is closed and the coroner no longer has jurisdiction over it.
The skull, believed to be that of a European woman, was found in the Ruamahanga River four years ago by Sam Tobin and has created a stir because radiocarbon tests showed it is over 300 years old. That has attracted interest from news media around the world because Europeans were not believed to have landed in New Zealand before 1770.
The skull is currently housed at Aratoi and further controversy has arisen since Ngati Hinewaka hapu spokesman Haami Te Whaiti said he believes it is a Maori skull and Aratoi conceded to his request to show it more respect and not allow it to be photographed.
Meanwhile, a retired archaeology professor says human remains are regularly found around the country and is puzzled that Featherston's 'mystery skull' was singled out for radiocarbon dating.
Dr Leach, who completed his doctorate in Wairarapa in the early 1970s, said he was aware the skull is thought to be a female of European descent and had been carbon dated to about 350 years BP (before present 1950), but said he had seen no scientific data which would help to confirm these findings, such as isotope and DNA results.
Dr Leach said he had seen no information on the archaeological and stratigraphic associations of the remains.
"It is most unusual to radiocarbon date human remains that have no clear provenance without some very good reason to do so.
"The lack of clear provenance and association with recognisable pre-European items means that there are numerous perfectly plausible explanations for such a find if European ancestry were proven.
"For example the loss of some ancient European remains imported into New Zealand in the 19th or 20th century for study in museums or anatomy departments," he said.
News of the discovery of the skull, found on the banks of the Ruamahunga River in October 2004, has inflamed academic debate and news media speculation.
Forensic anthropologist Doctor Robert Watt, initially examined the skull in November 2004, concluding it was probably a 40 to 45-year-old European female but Maori ancestry could not be discounted.
Because of the difficulty in establishing the time of death and age of the skull, Dr Watt recommended it be sent for carbon testing, which established the skull was 296 years old plus or minus 34 years at the time of its discovery.
Wairarapa archivist Gareth Winter said Dutch explorer AbelTasman first saw New Zealand in 1642 but journeyed exclusively along the West Coast and did not land anywhere in the North Island.
British Captain James Cook was the first European to sight Wairarapa when he passed Cape Palliser in 1770 making his way from his Marlborough Sounds base toward Cape Turnagain in Hawke's Bay, Mr Winter said.
Akaroa-based botanist Warwick Harris said the preliminary information attached to the finding of the skull "should be immediately dismissed as implausible in view of what is accepted as the history of European voyaging to New Zealand, i.e., nothing before Tasman and Cook".
"Further analysis of the skull could indicate whether the person it belonged to grew up in New Zealand or whether they were raised in another part of the world.
"The situation is that we do not have hard evidence of any non-Polynesian contact with New Zealand before Tasman but it is worthwhile to keep looking for evidence and to keep an open mind about European visitors before Tasman."
Dr Harris said his interest in pre-Tasman or Cook contact with New Zealand was prompted by a visit to La Corunna, Spain, in 2001 where locals showed him a pohutukawa tree, a NZ native, which some believe is more than 300 years old.