Posted on 08/05/2008 10:22:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The discovery of a European skull dating back more than 260 years has cast doubt that Captain James Cook was the first Westerner to step foot on the shores of New Zealand.
Captain Cook recorded in his log, a tale told to him by a Maori chief, of a ship having been shipwrecked many years earlier Scientists are baffled after carbon dating showed the skull, a woman's which was found near the country's capital, Wellington, dates back from 1742 – decades before Cook's Pacific expedition arrived in 1769.
The discovery was made by a boy walking his dog on the bank of a river in the Wairarapa region of the North Island, an area settled by Europeans only after the establishment of a colony by the New Zealand Company in 1840.
Dr Robin Watt, a forensic anthropologist called in by police who investigated the discovery, said yesterday: "It's a real mystery, it really is. "We've got the problem of how did this woman get here? Who was she?
"I recommended they do carbon date on it and, of course, they came up with that amazing result."
The mystery of the skull, found four years ago, was raked over last week at an provincial capitol inquest.
John Kershaw, the local coroner, was told that police at first thought they had a murder inquiry on their hands.
"One of the reasons some work was done on the skull was because it had a number of puncture wounds," Mr Kershaw said.
"We don't know how this lady met her death, although the historian we used indicated drowning was a reasonable guess."
The inquest heard that the skull was definitely not Maori - the only race known to have inhabited New Zealand in the 18th century - and almost certainly of European origin.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“We don’t allow men on our handbag missions. They just don’t understand the shoe/handbag problem. “
For which some of us are deeply grateful. ;)
“Or why we’re mad at them at any given time.”
Sir Edmund Hilary paraphrased what he learned from his mother; it should have been “Because we can.”
“I believe we have discovered the first recorded case of a woman being MAROONED because of PMS.”
Keep posting stuff like that, and I won’t have to worry at all! ;)
You mean that after the locals ate the males, this young woman was faced with a fate worse than death among the Maori savages? EWWWWWW!
Okay, I’ll accept that although there doesn’t seem to be any physical evidence of male survivors.
But then you have to ask yourself. Why did they knock holes in her head? Probably to let the bad humors out when she started bitchin’ :-)
Example: “Does this grass skirt make me look fat?”
I’m sure it was the man’s fault. Probably made her go out for beer and chips.
I can’t believe there were other women there before Captain Cook. She was a great explorer.
Ah yes, the infamous tagline.
“She had the face of a trucker. She used it as a purse.”
Quite painful that, and a stoning offense in Boston.
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