Bones and words in 1870s New Zealand: the moa-hunter debate through actor networks.

The author uses actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze the moa-hunter debate which occurred in New Zealand in the 1870s. The scientific controversy was predominantly an argument between Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey and manager of the New Zealand Institute James Hector against theories proposed by Canterbury Museum curator and geologist Julius Haast regarding the remains of extinct birds called moas. The argument centered on the ethnicity of the tribe responsible for hunting the moas to extinction--Hector argued it was the indigenous Maori tribe while Haast argued that it was a distinct tribe he alluded to as the moa-hunters.