150
9 Exploration Strategies, Settlement Sequence and the Evolution of Canoe Design
Marquesas (1,200 km 2 ), Carolines (1,200 km 2 ) and Tahiti (1,000 km 2 ) have less
than 1,000 km 2 .
An early settlement of the Bismarcks and Solomons is perhaps predictable from
land area alone. However, for Spice Islanders as major maritime traders, trading
opportunities may well have provided a stronger motivation for colonization than
land area and richness in natural resources or small distance from the Spice Islands.
Taking possession of the valuable trading resource, Talisean obsidian, may well
have triggered settlement of the Bismarcks and Solomons, which had possibly been
depeopled by the Mt Witori eruption. The establishment of an early spice-trading
colony in Japan, we have suggested, would probably have been in response to trading opportunities and priorities. An early settlement of Madagascar as a rest and
supply station on the Cinnamon Route, likewise, may have been largely a matter
of securing trading opportunities, though as a large uninhabited island, Madagascar
would have been additionally attractive to migrants.
It seems likely that Madagascar and New Zealand may have been settled before
Island Melanesia and Western Polynesia both on the grounds of their significant
land areas and in the case of Madagascar of its trading relevance. It also seems
likely that the archipelagoes of Eastern Polynesia would be the last to be settled,
not solely because of the difficulties of reaching them against the trade winds and
currents of the southern Pacific (assumed by most prehistorians to be the sole cause
for their late settlement). Their small land areas and their remoteness from spicetrading routes, their distance from the Spice Islands, the fact that there were no
strong warm WPWP currents flowing to them and their lack of trading resources
made them unlikely migration targets for Spice Island traders.
Our central paradigm proposes early extensive exploration of the Pacific and
Indian Oceans following three exploration paths, all major currents flowing out
of the WPWP. Our paradigm predicts which large uninhabited islands would
have been discovered by following these paths. Recognizing these currents as
early exploration paths, however, does not enable us to predict the colonizing
sequence for the discovered lands. The place of each land in the settlement sequence
appears to have depended on a balance of factors but it is clear that this balance varied with time. In the next five sections we consider factors determining
variation.
9.2 Settlement Sequence: Avoiding Hypothermia
As the Spice Islanders’ maritime skills, experience and confidence grew through
their experience of long-distance voyaging, it seems clear that the balance of factors
determining migration sequence would have changed. As we have seen, regional
voyaging involving trading within the WPWP was extended first to coastal spice
trading in the northern Indian Ocean, extended further to current-based transoceanic
spice trading following the Cinnamon Route to Madagascar and east Africa in the
west and then through following the Kuro Shio Current to Hawaii and America in
9 Exploration Strategies, Settlement Sequence and the Evolution of Canoe Design
Marquesas (1,200 km 2 ), Carolines (1,200 km 2 ) and Tahiti (1,000 km 2 ) have less
than 1,000 km 2 .
An early settlement of the Bismarcks and Solomons is perhaps predictable from
land area alone. However, for Spice Islanders as major maritime traders, trading
opportunities may well have provided a stronger motivation for colonization than
land area and richness in natural resources or small distance from the Spice Islands.
Taking possession of the valuable trading resource, Talisean obsidian, may well
have triggered settlement of the Bismarcks and Solomons, which had possibly been
depeopled by the Mt Witori eruption. The establishment of an early spice-trading
colony in Japan, we have suggested, would probably have been in response to trading opportunities and priorities. An early settlement of Madagascar as a rest and
supply station on the Cinnamon Route, likewise, may have been largely a matter
of securing trading opportunities, though as a large uninhabited island, Madagascar
would have been additionally attractive to migrants.
It seems likely that Madagascar and New Zealand may have been settled before
Island Melanesia and Western Polynesia both on the grounds of their significant
land areas and in the case of Madagascar of its trading relevance. It also seems
likely that the archipelagoes of Eastern Polynesia would be the last to be settled,
not solely because of the difficulties of reaching them against the trade winds and
currents of the southern Pacific (assumed by most prehistorians to be the sole cause
for their late settlement). Their small land areas and their remoteness from spicetrading routes, their distance from the Spice Islands, the fact that there were no
strong warm WPWP currents flowing to them and their lack of trading resources
made them unlikely migration targets for Spice Island traders.
Our central paradigm proposes early extensive exploration of the Pacific and
Indian Oceans following three exploration paths, all major currents flowing out
of the WPWP. Our paradigm predicts which large uninhabited islands would
have been discovered by following these paths. Recognizing these currents as
early exploration paths, however, does not enable us to predict the colonizing
sequence for the discovered lands. The place of each land in the settlement sequence
appears to have depended on a balance of factors but it is clear that this balance varied with time. In the next five sections we consider factors determining
variation.
9.2 Settlement Sequence: Avoiding Hypothermia
As the Spice Islanders’ maritime skills, experience and confidence grew through
their experience of long-distance voyaging, it seems clear that the balance of factors
determining migration sequence would have changed. As we have seen, regional
voyaging involving trading within the WPWP was extended first to coastal spice
trading in the northern Indian Ocean, extended further to current-based transoceanic
spice trading following the Cinnamon Route to Madagascar and east Africa in the
west and then through following the Kuro Shio Current to Hawaii and America in