9.1 Introduction
149
Currents and winds giving optimal access to the East Australian Current through
the two northern routes from the Spice Islands (above New Guinea and below New
Guinea) can change seasonally, determining optimal timing for voyages and optimal voyaging route for joining the East Australian Current. A fast passage to New
Zealand would be facilitated by a strong El Niño, able to reverse or weaken the
South Equatorial Current as it flows towards New Guinea. More significantly, an El
Niño would provide a strong northerly wind to hasten the passage south. In sailing
the Cinnamon Route, the timing for optimal wind conditions similarly determined
the timing for voyaging because the Cinnamon Route relied on power from monsoonal winds as well as from a strong current to cross the long distance without
landfall from Christmas Island to Madagascar.
The practical consequences of understanding the predictable pattern of ocean
currents is obvious: it would have facilitated a rapid search for the largest islands in
the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Instead of sailing in cautious arcs looking for islands
within a safe easy sailing range, early explorers could have committed themselves to
following strong currents and, by watching for diverging edges in the current, been
guided to new lands.
Following fast warm ocean currents as an exploration strategy in a warm global
period would have enabled Spice Island explorers to quickly discover the largest
uninhabited islands open to settlement: Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, New
Zealand in the south Pacific and the small but fertile Hawaii in the north Pacific.
With a current-based exploration strategy, the largest lands that could be reached
by WPWP currents would be discovered first because the larger the land the more
obvious the current divergence. If the lands they discovered were uninhabited they
would naturally become potential migration targets. Migrating to the newly discovered lands was a matter of following the same fast warm current the explorers had
used, with the current itself, through its diverging edge, guiding colonists to their
destination.
A west–east, nearest-to-most-remote paradigm is associated with the stepwise
settlement of Eastern Polynesia from Western Polynesia. If we set this paradigm
aside as not relevant to the current-based settlement of the Pacific from the Spice
Islands, it is interesting to consider instead the more usual criteria for determining
settlement sequence: land area and richness in natural resources.
Current-based exploration would have made possible the early discovery of the
largest uninhabited islands in both oceans: Madagascar at over half a million square
kilometres in area and New Zealand (265,000 km 2 ). Though both were a long voyaging distance from the Spice Islands, they could be reached directly by following
major currents flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool.
Migration targets with significant land area closer to the Spice Island were the
Bismarcks and Solomons, which together constitute a larger land area (77,000 km 2 )
than the total areas of Western Polynesia (22,000 km 2 ), and Island Melanesia,
including New Caledonia, and all the intervening archipelagoes (40,000 km 2 ). The
Hawaiian Islands, rich in resources, had a land area of 17,000 km 2 and could be
reached through following a major WPWP current. These islands may well have
provided a rest and supply station on the Kuro Shio Current route to America.
All other Pacific archipelagoes have areas of less than 2,000 km 2 and all but the
149
Currents and winds giving optimal access to the East Australian Current through
the two northern routes from the Spice Islands (above New Guinea and below New
Guinea) can change seasonally, determining optimal timing for voyages and optimal voyaging route for joining the East Australian Current. A fast passage to New
Zealand would be facilitated by a strong El Niño, able to reverse or weaken the
South Equatorial Current as it flows towards New Guinea. More significantly, an El
Niño would provide a strong northerly wind to hasten the passage south. In sailing
the Cinnamon Route, the timing for optimal wind conditions similarly determined
the timing for voyaging because the Cinnamon Route relied on power from monsoonal winds as well as from a strong current to cross the long distance without
landfall from Christmas Island to Madagascar.
The practical consequences of understanding the predictable pattern of ocean
currents is obvious: it would have facilitated a rapid search for the largest islands in
the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Instead of sailing in cautious arcs looking for islands
within a safe easy sailing range, early explorers could have committed themselves to
following strong currents and, by watching for diverging edges in the current, been
guided to new lands.
Following fast warm ocean currents as an exploration strategy in a warm global
period would have enabled Spice Island explorers to quickly discover the largest
uninhabited islands open to settlement: Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, New
Zealand in the south Pacific and the small but fertile Hawaii in the north Pacific.
With a current-based exploration strategy, the largest lands that could be reached
by WPWP currents would be discovered first because the larger the land the more
obvious the current divergence. If the lands they discovered were uninhabited they
would naturally become potential migration targets. Migrating to the newly discovered lands was a matter of following the same fast warm current the explorers had
used, with the current itself, through its diverging edge, guiding colonists to their
destination.
A west–east, nearest-to-most-remote paradigm is associated with the stepwise
settlement of Eastern Polynesia from Western Polynesia. If we set this paradigm
aside as not relevant to the current-based settlement of the Pacific from the Spice
Islands, it is interesting to consider instead the more usual criteria for determining
settlement sequence: land area and richness in natural resources.
Current-based exploration would have made possible the early discovery of the
largest uninhabited islands in both oceans: Madagascar at over half a million square
kilometres in area and New Zealand (265,000 km 2 ). Though both were a long voyaging distance from the Spice Islands, they could be reached directly by following
major currents flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool.
Migration targets with significant land area closer to the Spice Island were the
Bismarcks and Solomons, which together constitute a larger land area (77,000 km 2 )
than the total areas of Western Polynesia (22,000 km 2 ), and Island Melanesia,
including New Caledonia, and all the intervening archipelagoes (40,000 km 2 ). The
Hawaiian Islands, rich in resources, had a land area of 17,000 km 2 and could be
reached through following a major WPWP current. These islands may well have
provided a rest and supply station on the Kuro Shio Current route to America.
All other Pacific archipelagoes have areas of less than 2,000 km 2 and all but the