Otago Study Confirms Pre-Colonial Māori Plant-Based Diets
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- University of Otago researchers published in Nature Communications the first direct scientific evidence that some pre-colonial Māori ate predominantly plant-based diets, based on isotope and enamel peptide analysis of seven tūpuna including four children recovered from the Waikato region.
- Lead author Dr. Rebecca Kinaston, Director of BioArch South, said the findings provide direct biological evidence supporting Māori oral histories, with isotope results showing children were likely weaned onto plant foods within their first two to three years of life.
- Visual analysis of the tūpuna's teeth indicated diets rich in soft, starchy and sticky foods consistent with cultivated crops such as kūmara and taro, underscoring the central role of horticulture in Māori society during this period.
- The kōiwi tangata were accidentally discovered during archaeological work tied to the Hamilton Section of the Waikato Expressway and recovered from a borrow pit originally dug to extract gravel used to amend soils for kūmara cultivation.
- Co-author Dr. Jonny Geber of the University of Edinburgh said the study also reveals rare insight into pre-Christian Māori burial practices, noting the tūpuna were interred as a secondary burial—a practice possibly linked to protecting ancestors during conflict or to tapu-related ritual.
- Lead archaeologist Sian Keith credited the research to sustained collaboration with mana whenua—Ngāti Maahanga, Ngāti Wairere, Ngāti Koroki Kahukura and Ngāti Hauā—whose approval and guidance she called fundamental to the study being carried out at all.
Why it matters: This is the first direct biological evidence—not archaeological inference—that some pre-colonial Māori diets centered on kūmara and taro, corroborating oral traditions and ethno-historical accounts. The work, approved and guided by four Waikato iwi, also models a collaborative template for studying kōiwi tangata uncovered by infrastructure projects like the Waikato Expressway.
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