The mode and tempo of extinctions and extirpations after the first contact phase of human settlements is a widely debated topic. As the last major landmass to be settled by humans, New Zealand offers a unique lens through which to study interactions of people and biota. By analyzing ancient DNA from more than 5,000 nondiagnostic and fragmented bones from 38 subfossil assemblages, we describe species and patterns that have been missed by morphological approaches.

Countries rely on out-of-pocket (OOP) spending to different degrees and employ varying techniques. The article examines trends in OOP spending in ten high-income countries since 2000, and analyzes their relationship to self-assessed barriers to accessing health care services. The countries are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Original Source

Māori oral histories from the northern South Island of Aotearoa – New Zealand provide details of ancestral experience with tsunamis. Exchanges with key informants from the Māori kin groups of Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Kuia reveal that these histories, recorded in a narrative form, are not merely another source of information about past catastrophic saltwater inundations but, rather, reference multiple layers of experience and meaning, from memorials to ancestral figures and their accomplishments, to claims about place, authority and knowledge.