The islands of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as its first inhabitants named them, first became populated at some point not long before 1300 AD. The indigenous people of New Zealand, known by the name they gave themselves - the Maori - are descendant from eastern Polynesia, whence they came in several waves. They formed a tribal society based on Polynesian social customs and organisation, but, over time, would develop a unique language and culture all of their own, complete with a rich mythology, distinctive crafts and performing arts, in splendid isolation from the rest of the world.

Europeans did not arrive in New Zealand until the beginning of the 17th century, and although their coming did not immediately bring the great change one might have assumed (in fact, the islanders and the Europeans lived fairly harmoniously together for some years, trading, and sharing knowledge and customs), it would, ultimately, usher in enormous upheaval. Over the years, the Maori began to adopt the settlers' ways, and many aspects of indigenous culture were compromised as a result.

It was following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which gave Britain a mandate to govern New Zealand and bestowed the rights of subjects of the British monarch on the Maori, that the rumblings of discontent began in earnest.

At first, what was being disputed was the exact terms of the treaty. The translation presented to the Maori in their native tongue had a number of discrepancies in it compared to the English version. Crucially, there was no mention of a total surrender of power and control to the British monarch, so it is highly unlikely that the Maori actually agreed with or consented to what they were signing when they put pen to paper on the anglicised version.

This, and the fact that only about one-third of the Maori tribes had actually signed off on the treaty, led to the first dispute, which soon turned bloody. Inevitably, the British forces, with their superior fire power, would prevail in the ensuing conflict. The conflict itself, though, did not take a harsh toll on either side in terms of fatalities. What really decimated the Maori population was disease. The Maori were not biologically equipped for the diseases they would contract as a result of contact with the settlers. They did not have sufficient natural immunity to combat flu and measles, which, it is estimated, together killed anywhere between ten and fifty percent of the population. Other illnesses such as typhoid, scarlet fever and whooping cough also took their toll.

The Maori population went into serious decline from the mid-1800s right up until the start of the 20th century when it began to stage a revival of sorts, thanks in part to efforts by the government of New Zealand, motivated by a desire to make amends for previous wrongdoing, to help the Maori return to prosperity. The 20th century saw a renaissance of Maori culture and a recovery of the population, which is continuing into the new millennium.

By 2015, an estimated 660,000 New Zealanders could claim direct Maori descent - roughly fifteen percent of the total population. Maori, the language, is spoken, to some extent, by about a quarter of this group, or four percent of the total population of New Zealand, and the Maori people are active in all aspects of domestic affairs. Maori words have become part of the lexicon of the local vernacular, New Zealand English, and many towns and regions across the country are known by their traditional Maori names.

That said, the Maori people still face some serious challenges today; challenges chiefly of a socio-economic nature. The Maori have a lower life expectancy, inferior earning power, higher crime levels and more health problems than all the other ethnic groups on the islands. They are also serial underachievers educationally. However, steps are being taken to redress the balance and improve the prospects of Maori youths going forward. One area in which they have excelled, and something which has come to almost symbolise the Maori's great sense of pride and warrior tradition, is the game of rugby. The Maori Haka has become synonymous with the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team. This traditional Maori dance is now showcased around the world in performances by the international rugby players, which precede all games they play in.

Located in a region of the Solar System beyond the planets (from 30 AU at Neptune’s orbit to circa 55 AU from the Sun), the Kuiper Belt, or Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt I as many scientists prefer to call it, is similar to an asteroid belt though far greater in size, being 20 times as wide and potentially 200 times as massive. Like asteroid I belts, the Kuiper is composed of small celestial bodies, the scattered remnants - the leftover junk if you like - from the formation of the Solar System, but unlike asteroid belts whose objects are largely composed of rock and metal, the Kuiper’s objects consist of what are termed ‘frozen volatiles’: methane, ammonia and water in ice form, for example. Another significant differentiating factor between the Kuiper and asteroid belts is the presence in the former of at least four dwarf planets, the most well-known of which is Pluto, which, until 2006, was actually classed as a planet in its own right. The belt has also previously been home to other large objects such as Saturn’s moon Phoebe and Neptune’s Triton, which originated in the region before coming under the influence of the gravitational forces of their respective planets.

Though the existence of a phenomenon like the belt had been hypothesised for some time, its existence wasn’t officially confirmed until 1992, since when over one thousand Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) have been officially observed. On the basis of what we know about the region, it is speculated that the actual number of KBOs measuring over 100km in diameter is far in excess of the 1000 objects already confirmed and closer to a figure in the region of 70,000. Initially, it was speculated that the Kuiper region was responsible for the appearance of most periodic comets (comets whose orbit lasts less than 200 years), but studies conducted in the mid-90s appear to contradict this assumption and cast the Kuiper region as one which is dynamically stable and, thus, not the repository of periodic comets it was originally assumed to be. Instead, the true source of periodic comets is now thought to be in the farther regions of the Solar System outside of the Kuiper Belt in an area referred to as the scattered disc, thought to have been created by the outward motion of Neptune several billion years ago. Scattered-disc objects are KBO-like bodies with orbits which take them as far as 100 AU from the Sun, far beyond the 50 AU boundary of the Kuiper Belt itself.

Pluto Is the largest-known Kuiper Belt object and also the tenth most massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun. It was reclassified a dwarf planet after it was discovered to be more similar compositionally to KBOs than the major planets, being comprised of rock and Ice. Its orbital period is also identical to that of another group of KBOs, referred to as plutinos in its honor. Alongside Pluto, a further three dwarf planets have now been observed within the Kuiper Belt, and these are collectively referred to as plutoids: another patent tribute to the former planet.

The Kuiper’s close proximity to Neptune has a profound effect on its structure due to the consequent orbital resonance (gravitational influence) at work on it. Neptune’s gravity destabilises the orbits of objects lying within certain regions of the Kuiper, doing one of two things: either sending them farther out into the scattered disc region of interstellar space, or into the linear Solar System. For this reason, the Kuiper is characterised by a series of pronounced gaps in its current layout, similar to the gaps present in the asteroid belt on which gravitational forces are also constantly at work.

The classical belt is the region of the Kuiper between 42-48 AU. Here the gravitational influence of Neptune is negligible, so KBOs can exist in their original orbits, largely unaffected. This region accounts for about two-thirds of all KBOs observed to date. Within the classical belt are two distinct populations of KBO defined by their differing orbits. The ‘dynamically cold’ population has orbits which are nearly circular, much as planets do. The ‘dynamically hot' population is characterised by more pronounced elliptical orbits. Not only are the populations at odds in their orbits, they are also compositionally distinct. The cold population has a red hue not evident in the hot population (the names cold and hot are not in any way indicative of temperature). It is thought that the hot population therefore formed in a different region near Jupiter before being ejected outward by movements among the gas giants, whereas the cold formed roughly where it is still situated, just outside of the orbital range of Neptune.