In the 1870s James Hector and Julius von Haast were involved in one of New Zealand's "most bitter scientific arguments" involving the extinction of the moa and moa-hunter origins; the ""Sumner Cave Controversy"". Haast had a display of moa at the Canterbury Museum; he maintained that the moa had been driven to extinction several thousand years ago by Paleolithic hunters who preceded the more sophisticated Neolithic Māori settlers, and lacked the skills to make polished pounamu ornaments. But Hector believed that the moa had been driven to extinction by Māori in the last few hundred years, and thought Haast's views were "outdated and misleading". In 1874 Alexander McKay (who had excavated at Sumner for Haast) gave a paper in Wellington "On the identity of Moa-hunters with the present Maori race", supported by Hector. Haast and Hector both sent papers for publication by the New Zealand Institute; both were published and generally local scientists supported McKay, with Haast distrusted because of his non-British background and his "volatile" temperament. The President of the Royal Society in London, Joseph Hooker, was written to and rejected most of Haast's arguments.