Chapter 9
Exploration Strategies, Settlement Sequence
and the Evolution of Canoe Design
Abstract Spice trading and associated conflict can be seen as central factors driving Spice Island migration history. Initially colonizing endeavours were linked to
opportunities for spice and obsidian trading (Japan, the Bismarcks, Madagascar).
Primacy for defeated tribes, when spice resources had been wrested from them, was
given to uninhabited islands with the largest land areas (Madagascar, New Zealand,
Island Melanesia, Western Polynesia, Hawaii, possibly in that order). Settlement
priorities changed with time. Avoiding hypothermia initially meant priority for colonizing closer lands. The spur of spice trading led to more distant settlements as
did the attractions of significant land area and rich biota. Late migrations to Eastern
Polynesia required evolution in sailing strategies and canoe design.
Keywords Settlement sequence · Later settlement of Eastern Polynesia · Canoe
design · Sailing strategies
9.1 Introduction
Our paradigm embodies the idea that following powerful warm currents flowing
out of the West Pacific Warm Pool into colder oceans dictated the sailing strategies that Spice Island mariners adopted in transoceanic voyaging in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans. We have suggested that this strategy was rooted in conditions and
in experience in their West Pacific Warm Pool nursery that propelled them into
long-distance voyaging. But exploiting fast warm currents was not only a means of
ensuring speed and thus of combating hypothermia. It also provided an extremely
effective mode of exploration. The Coriolis effect, which is governed by the rotation
of the Earth, determines the pattern and behaviour of ocean currents worldwide. The
major currents in the northern hemisphere travel in clockwise loops between enclosing continents. In the southern hemisphere the loops are anti-clockwise. As a current
reaches a significant landmass – a large island or continent – part or whole of the
current turns towards it, travels some way north or south, depending on the hemisphere, and then reversing, flows in the opposite direction usually back across the
ocean. An explorer following a fast ocean current, alert for this sign, could estimate,
147
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_9, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Exploration Strategies, Settlement Sequence
and the Evolution of Canoe Design
Abstract Spice trading and associated conflict can be seen as central factors driving Spice Island migration history. Initially colonizing endeavours were linked to
opportunities for spice and obsidian trading (Japan, the Bismarcks, Madagascar).
Primacy for defeated tribes, when spice resources had been wrested from them, was
given to uninhabited islands with the largest land areas (Madagascar, New Zealand,
Island Melanesia, Western Polynesia, Hawaii, possibly in that order). Settlement
priorities changed with time. Avoiding hypothermia initially meant priority for colonizing closer lands. The spur of spice trading led to more distant settlements as
did the attractions of significant land area and rich biota. Late migrations to Eastern
Polynesia required evolution in sailing strategies and canoe design.
Keywords Settlement sequence · Later settlement of Eastern Polynesia · Canoe
design · Sailing strategies
9.1 Introduction
Our paradigm embodies the idea that following powerful warm currents flowing
out of the West Pacific Warm Pool into colder oceans dictated the sailing strategies that Spice Island mariners adopted in transoceanic voyaging in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans. We have suggested that this strategy was rooted in conditions and
in experience in their West Pacific Warm Pool nursery that propelled them into
long-distance voyaging. But exploiting fast warm currents was not only a means of
ensuring speed and thus of combating hypothermia. It also provided an extremely
effective mode of exploration. The Coriolis effect, which is governed by the rotation
of the Earth, determines the pattern and behaviour of ocean currents worldwide. The
major currents in the northern hemisphere travel in clockwise loops between enclosing continents. In the southern hemisphere the loops are anti-clockwise. As a current
reaches a significant landmass – a large island or continent – part or whole of the
current turns towards it, travels some way north or south, depending on the hemisphere, and then reversing, flows in the opposite direction usually back across the
ocean. An explorer following a fast ocean current, alert for this sign, could estimate,
147
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_9, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010