1Who Was Here Before Us? The story of the discovery and settlement of New Zealand should be a straightforward one. Most of us accept that the Maori came here in ocean-going waka about 800-years ago, but there are also a number of contentious theories about lost tribes, hidden ruins, and stone monuments that tell of people being here thousands of years before the Maori arrived. This archaeological and geological evidence is painting a very different picture to the one we learned at school.