An upcoming Royal Society talk in Wānaka will discuss the story of the Moriori society.

Dr Doug Sutton will summarise research completed over the past 50 years on the Moriori and what we now know about them.

The talk, taking place next Friday (June 17), will detail the original discovery of the Chatham Islands, the indigenous development of the Moriori population there, and the culture and society before new arrivals. 

Doug will also discuss the demographic, environmental, social and cultural impacts of rediscovery by sealers and whalers, as well as the enduring occupation of the island by new settlers.

He will review the Moriori struggle for survival, which Doug says was “set in motion by the herculean efforts and tactical genius of Hirawanu Tapu and codified, a hundred years after his death, by settlement with the Crown.”

Doug obtained his PhD at the University of Otago before completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

His publications include books, monographs and articles in international and regional journals, which have focussed on high-latitude hunter gatherer societies, the development of Māori societies before European arrival, aspects of forensics and paleodemography, and the use of biographical methods in contact-period archaeology.

His many fieldwork projects include those at Pouerua, Northland, and Matakana Island, Bay of Plenty, Tahiti, and the Southern Cook Islands.

Doug will present his talk ‘Moriori - Assuredly a story worth telling’ next Friday (June 17) at the Presbyterian Community Centre at 91 Tenby Street at 6pm.

Entry is $5.

PHOTO: Supplied