Chapter 11
Challenging a Late First Settlement
Date for New Zealand
Abstract Rates of population change, estimates of founder populations and first
settlement dates are all open to dispute and can be chosen consciously or unconsciously in accordance with a demographer’s beliefs. Each such package of choices,
and most notably the first settlement date, carries demographic implications and
consequences. We consider the demographic implications of a now widely accepted
first settlement date for New Zealand of AD 1200 to illustrate the problems and
absurdities that can arise when an inappropriate date for first settlement is chosen.
A numerical exploration of a late date for the first settlement of New Zealand in
relation to the population capacity of New Zealand’s 7,000 pa (hill-forts) and in
relation to population decline rates elsewhere in the world in the Little Ice Age
effectively provides a reductio ad absurdum argument against the theory of a late
first settlement for New Zealand.
Keywords New Zealand · Prehistoric growth rate · Early settlement · Global
population decline · Pa capacity · Little Ice Age
11.1 Introduction
A computer simulation of possible voyaging routes from New Caledonia to New
Zealand, carried out by Auckland archaeologist Geoffrey Irwin in 1992, found it
to be no more difficult for Lapita colonists to “reach New Zealand from Eastern
Melanesia” than to make the crossing from Eastern Melanesia to Fiji and West
Polynesia [1], as they are known to have done in Lapita times. Irwin’s simulation
was not concerned with following fast currents and assumed a North Island landfall.
Nevertheless it implies that a Lapita colonization of New Zealand was technologically feasible 3,000 years ago. Our paradigm predicts that Spice Island mariners,
following a third major WPWP current, the East Australian Current, would have
discovered and colonized New Zealand before 1000 BC. Evidence for Lapita-age
settlements of Madagascar, Japan and Hawaii and for contact with east Africa and
America before 1000 BC enhances the likelihood that Spice Island colonists would
have followed the East Australian Current over the shorter distance to New Zealand.
181
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_11, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Challenging a Late First Settlement
Date for New Zealand
Abstract Rates of population change, estimates of founder populations and first
settlement dates are all open to dispute and can be chosen consciously or unconsciously in accordance with a demographer’s beliefs. Each such package of choices,
and most notably the first settlement date, carries demographic implications and
consequences. We consider the demographic implications of a now widely accepted
first settlement date for New Zealand of AD 1200 to illustrate the problems and
absurdities that can arise when an inappropriate date for first settlement is chosen.
A numerical exploration of a late date for the first settlement of New Zealand in
relation to the population capacity of New Zealand’s 7,000 pa (hill-forts) and in
relation to population decline rates elsewhere in the world in the Little Ice Age
effectively provides a reductio ad absurdum argument against the theory of a late
first settlement for New Zealand.
Keywords New Zealand · Prehistoric growth rate · Early settlement · Global
population decline · Pa capacity · Little Ice Age
11.1 Introduction
A computer simulation of possible voyaging routes from New Caledonia to New
Zealand, carried out by Auckland archaeologist Geoffrey Irwin in 1992, found it
to be no more difficult for Lapita colonists to “reach New Zealand from Eastern
Melanesia” than to make the crossing from Eastern Melanesia to Fiji and West
Polynesia [1], as they are known to have done in Lapita times. Irwin’s simulation
was not concerned with following fast currents and assumed a North Island landfall.
Nevertheless it implies that a Lapita colonization of New Zealand was technologically feasible 3,000 years ago. Our paradigm predicts that Spice Island mariners,
following a third major WPWP current, the East Australian Current, would have
discovered and colonized New Zealand before 1000 BC. Evidence for Lapita-age
settlements of Madagascar, Japan and Hawaii and for contact with east Africa and
America before 1000 BC enhances the likelihood that Spice Island colonists would
have followed the East Australian Current over the shorter distance to New Zealand.
181
C.E.M. Pearce, F.M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_11, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010