Political - Moriori arrival dates (and the missing $722,000?)

Some of you may have noted we have queried a few times the results of a supposed study from 2011 of Moriori DNA and artifacts where the Marsden Fund were reported to have paid nearly $850,000 in research grants to have it completed. Some time ago we contacted Maui Solomon who said that this study was not completed 'that he knew of', and that he never saw a cent of the money (the last part I do believe).

Now in as much as we'd all like to know this information (because officialdom seem to want to avoid such a study on the Moriori timeline), we wrote to the Marsden fund direct. Here is there reply...

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Tēnā koe

Thank you for your recent enquiry. I have copied Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in this email as the contracted party providing the research. To correct the information you have, this project was completed. Mr Solomon is right to recommend you seek any further queries to the team at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in the first instance.

The public information we have on file for this project is below:

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Investigating prehistoric Moriori settlement on Rekohu (Chatham Islands)

Recipient(s): Dr JM Wilmshurst | PI | Landcare Research Prof A Anderson | PI | Canterbury University Mr MA Solomon | PI | Hokotehi Moriori Trust Prof AJ Cooper | AI | The University of Adelaide Dr J Wood | AI | Landcare Research

Public Summary: When were the Chatham Islands (Rekohu) settled by Moriori? This is a puzzling and controversial question in New Zealand prehistory. The widely accepted date for settlement is AD 1500, but is based on only a small number of radiocarbon dates from the 1970s. However, Moriori traditional knowledge, linguistic divergence of Moriori from Maori, and the archaic nature of their stone artefacts suggests settlement much earlier in the 13th century. Supporting this, a reappraisal of East Polynesian settlement shows rapid dispersal from the Society Islands to the outer islands of the region, including mainland New Zealand, at about AD 1200-1300. If the Chathams were settled 200-300 years later, as the current radiocarbon dates indicate, this has profound implications for its human and biological history and suggests long-distance voyaging in mainland New Zealand persisted well after settlement. Alternatively, previous archaeological excavations have completely missed the first few centuries of settlement. This project will provide a precise age for Moriori settlement and establish the trajectory of cultural and ecological change on the Chathams. New archaeological investigations, microfossil sequences, rat-gnawed seed, ancient DNA analyses and radiocarbon dating will settle long-standing controversies, and expand our knowledge of the broader dispersal of people from East Polynesia.

Total Awarded: $721,739

Duration: 3 years

Host: Landcare Research

Contact Person: Dr JM Wilmshurst

Panel: EHB

Project ID: 11-LCR-001

Ngā mihi nui

Mark

Dr Mark Stagg Tumu Pūtea Maruārangi Director—Research Funding

DDI +64 4 470 5790 M +64 21 059 3262 T +64 4 472 7421

Royal Society Te Apārangi

11 Turnbull Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 PO Box 598, Wellington 6140, New Zealand ROYALSOCIETY.ORG.NZ

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This won't be the last thing we wish investigated as we plan everything else, but it is the first as a sort of trial as to public reaction, transparency of funding and who spent it, and to ask a question....

SO WHERE THE HELL IS THE REPORT?

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Now, a few weeks after first writing that planned post and setting the post in the publish schedule, word came back that the report was never completed and Solomon himself said he never received a cent of that $721,000. Other studies in the Chatham Islands received separate money for various separate reports. Yet the Marsden Fund has not received this $721,739 back. So it's' been misappropriated it seems.

SO WHERE THE HELL IS THE MONEY?