A human jawbone found by a member of the public near Tuatapere.

When hiker Andrew Mackie set out from the Hump Ridge track carpark for a tramp, he expected to find beautiful wildlife and maybe some nice views.

Instead, he found a human jawbone.

Mackie found the jawbone in September but forensic analysis has just confirmed it dates to pre-European times.

It was found half buried in the sand just above the half tide line at a bay west of Sand Hill Point.

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"It was sitting there like a grinning face."

Mackie said his initial thought was that it may have belonged to one of the three people on board the yacht Munetra when it went missing in 2014.

He handed the bone in to the Tuatapere police where it was held before being sent to a forensic pathologist in Christchurch.

A police spokesperson said the forensic pathologist had placed the jaw-bone as Pre-European.

Mackie said he immediately knew it was human from the way it was positioned but didn't dig for more as he knew there was a significant Maori site nearby.

Tuatapere police seemed surprised to see it, Mackie said.

"They joked about bones because someone found moa bones last year on the same track."

The police spokesperson said a bone that closely resembled an almost complete human femur was located on Blow Holes Beach in July 2015 but was later found to be a moa bone.

Mackie said the police had given him two options about the origin of the jawbone, one being that it was from a Maori child or teenager and one that it was from a more recent accident.

The bone had been returned to the local iwi at Oraka-Aparima Runaka, Riverton.

Mackie had been told that if it was a Maori artefact the local iwi would go to the site and say a karakia over the site.

"They wanted it to happen soon, like the next day, and asked if I wanted to go."