Dr Harris said she was "stunned" to hear Tangata Whenua announced as the winning book from the five shortlisted by UK science writer Philip Ball, at an event at the Auckland Writers Festival. She said the book's success was great for the humanities.
"We do regard it as an acknowledgement of Maori history and its capacity to incorporate a range of sciences and methods - archaeology and genetics, whakapapa and sociology, environmental science and demography.
"It affirms the collaborations that are possible between the sciences and the arts. I think the prize is great for the humanities; I hope others see it that way too."
The three co-authors decided to write Tangata Whenua about seven years ago, but Dame Judith Binney passed away in February 2011. Dr Harris said her contributions were an important influence in the book.
"Judith's passing was an enormous blow, but also a spur to do a good job, one of which she would be proud," Dr Harris said.
She now hopes that people will take many strong messages from the book, particularly the need to respect the past.
"The past matters. The past informs who we are, and helps us understand how we came to be who we are. If we don't pay attention to our past we deprive ourselves of the lessons it has to teach us."
The judges, Professor Jean Fleming, Professor Ken Strongman and Dr Rebecca Priestley, said the book "brings together physical sciences, social sciences and the humanities in a dazzling work of scholarship".
"It draws on these disciplines to tell the stories of the Maori people, their origins, their journeys to find this country and their stories in Aotearoa New Zealand.
"This beautifully published book has a broad public appeal and will be read widely by New Zealanders keen to discover who we are and where we come from."
In addition to being a history, it is based on research on genetics and climate science as well as archaeology, anthropology, ethnography (the study of culture) and paleoecology (study of past ecosystems or environments, reconstructed from fossils).
Professor Strongman said the short-listed books in this year's science prize were all extremely readable and well done, but Tangata Whenua stood out.
"It is a book that is likely in the future to be found in any sentient household in New Zealand.
"It tells the story of the Maori people so fully that it is bound to be the work most referred to in this context.
"The book represents a seminal melding of the humanities and social sciences and in so doing forms a model for future works."
Dr Harris is the author of Hikoi: Forty Years of Maori Protest, a book on political protest in the late twentieth century.
