208
12 The Context of Global Climate Change: Climate-Driven Demography
Barber refers to the “resource crisis” which “appears to characterize the general
New Zealand sequence from about the fifteenth century A.D.”, but argues that “the
possibility must be considered that cultural precedents for later patterns of conflict
and ritual violence were introduced by the earliest Polynesian settlers” and suggests that “a critical consideration of the evidence for cannibalism in other Pacific
sequences, such as Fiji, the Marquesas, and Easter Island may also be fruitful”
(p. 283). In this context he quotes Kirch’s remark that “the institutionalization of
cannibalism in late prehistoric Marquesan society must be taken as a symptom of
tensions which had developed between social groups, exacerbated by dense populations and recurrent famine” [22] and refers to Kirch’s comment on the development
of cannibalism in the later, high-population, “Decadent Phase” of the Easter Island
sequence.
The Marquesas and Easter Island offer two examples that, it seems, may parallel
the demographic pattern we see in New Zealand in the Little Ice Age though, given
their smaller land areas and associated limitations on population sustainability, the
pattern probably took effect earlier there. We see the same vulnerability of high populations to climate-driven resource shortages and famine, the same intense conflict
over land and resources, the appearance of cannibalism and population collapse.
Barber agues that in New Zealand, from an absence of archaeological evidence,
“an argument for widespread or subsistence cannibalism cannot be sustained”
(p. 280) and he points to “Houghton’s general observation, offered from a position
of many years analysis of pre-European Maori skeletal remains from sites throughout New Zealand” and Houghton’s conclusion that “There is no evidence to suggest
that large tribal battles caused much injury (or even occurred) or that cannibalism
was common” [23].
We would suggest that the extraordinary labour that produced the 7,000 pa currently registered on the national site record file suggests an atmosphere of conflict.
Though Best mentions pa that were never taken, there are examples in his The Pa
Maori of some that were. For example he mentions the case of a “weak” pa defended
by only 100 warriors which was attacked by 1,600, who killed 67 men and enslaved
180 of the 200 women and children [24]. A population large enough to outstrip
resources in a country as large as New Zealand a few hundred years after a first
settlement in AD 1200 is demographically inconceivable. It is still more improbable
with the first settlement date of AD 1280 suggested in a recent paper [25]. The sheer
size of the 36 volcanic cone pa on the Auckland Isthmus alone contradicts such a
possibility. For example, the complex and extensive site of One Tree Hill shown in
Fig. 12.2, which was defended by formidable earthworks, covers an area of 17.2 ha.
Extensive pa-building and rebuilding with the inclusion of additional defensive
means, and above all the sustained occupation of pa in New Zealand during the
Little Ice Age rather than their occasional use as refuges as elsewhere in the Pacific,
suggests rather that the “perpetual apprehinsions” of attack Cook ascribed to the
Maori more accurately represents the level of conflict and fear for tribal survival
in the Little Ice Age. It is possible that the existence of so many pa and the sheer
difficulty of taking the substantial ones may have proved a deterrent and so limited
fighting. It is also possible that by the time of European contact, when as we shall
12 The Context of Global Climate Change: Climate-Driven Demography
Barber refers to the “resource crisis” which “appears to characterize the general
New Zealand sequence from about the fifteenth century A.D.”, but argues that “the
possibility must be considered that cultural precedents for later patterns of conflict
and ritual violence were introduced by the earliest Polynesian settlers” and suggests that “a critical consideration of the evidence for cannibalism in other Pacific
sequences, such as Fiji, the Marquesas, and Easter Island may also be fruitful”
(p. 283). In this context he quotes Kirch’s remark that “the institutionalization of
cannibalism in late prehistoric Marquesan society must be taken as a symptom of
tensions which had developed between social groups, exacerbated by dense populations and recurrent famine” [22] and refers to Kirch’s comment on the development
of cannibalism in the later, high-population, “Decadent Phase” of the Easter Island
sequence.
The Marquesas and Easter Island offer two examples that, it seems, may parallel
the demographic pattern we see in New Zealand in the Little Ice Age though, given
their smaller land areas and associated limitations on population sustainability, the
pattern probably took effect earlier there. We see the same vulnerability of high populations to climate-driven resource shortages and famine, the same intense conflict
over land and resources, the appearance of cannibalism and population collapse.
Barber agues that in New Zealand, from an absence of archaeological evidence,
“an argument for widespread or subsistence cannibalism cannot be sustained”
(p. 280) and he points to “Houghton’s general observation, offered from a position
of many years analysis of pre-European Maori skeletal remains from sites throughout New Zealand” and Houghton’s conclusion that “There is no evidence to suggest
that large tribal battles caused much injury (or even occurred) or that cannibalism
was common” [23].
We would suggest that the extraordinary labour that produced the 7,000 pa currently registered on the national site record file suggests an atmosphere of conflict.
Though Best mentions pa that were never taken, there are examples in his The Pa
Maori of some that were. For example he mentions the case of a “weak” pa defended
by only 100 warriors which was attacked by 1,600, who killed 67 men and enslaved
180 of the 200 women and children [24]. A population large enough to outstrip
resources in a country as large as New Zealand a few hundred years after a first
settlement in AD 1200 is demographically inconceivable. It is still more improbable
with the first settlement date of AD 1280 suggested in a recent paper [25]. The sheer
size of the 36 volcanic cone pa on the Auckland Isthmus alone contradicts such a
possibility. For example, the complex and extensive site of One Tree Hill shown in
Fig. 12.2, which was defended by formidable earthworks, covers an area of 17.2 ha.
Extensive pa-building and rebuilding with the inclusion of additional defensive
means, and above all the sustained occupation of pa in New Zealand during the
Little Ice Age rather than their occasional use as refuges as elsewhere in the Pacific,
suggests rather that the “perpetual apprehinsions” of attack Cook ascribed to the
Maori more accurately represents the level of conflict and fear for tribal survival
in the Little Ice Age. It is possible that the existence of so many pa and the sheer
difficulty of taking the substantial ones may have proved a deterrent and so limited
fighting. It is also possible that by the time of European contact, when as we shall