Pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand theories

Since the early 1900s it has been accepted by archaeologists and anthropologists that Polynesians (who became the Māori) were the first ethnic group to settle in New Zealand (first proposed by Captain James Cook). Before that time and until the 1920s, however, a small group of prominent anthropologists proposed that the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands represented a pre-Māori group of people from Melanesia, who once lived across all of New Zealand and were replaced by the Māori. While this claim was soon disproven by academics, it was widely incorporated into school textbooks during the 20th century, most notably in the School Journal. This theory has been followed by modern claims of a pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand by various ethnic groups. Today, such theories are considered to be pseudohistorical and negationist by scholars and historians.

In recent times, a greater variety of speculation of New Zealand's first settlers has occurred outside of academia. These ideas typically incorporate aspects of conspiracy theories as they are in opposition to the last 100 years of academic research. The common acceptance of these unsubstantiated theories has been used by prominent politicians and public figures to attack Māori politics and culture.