210
12 The Context of Global Climate Change: Climate-Driven Demography
in tropical Polynesia by this date at least. The story shows a general rejection of
cannibalism: despite his name, Kai-tangata rejects the eating of human flesh, which
his pregnant demoness wife craves. This rejection of cannibalism is, however, combined with an implicit recognition that starvation and cannibalism occur together. A
general reluctance, or suggestion of guilt, emerges both in this story and perhaps in
New Zealand in the Little Ice Age in the claim that cannibalism had appeared there
for the first time. Maori insisted that it was not indigenous but had been brought
there by the medieval migrants from Eastern Polynesia (for whom, as the traditional story of Kai-tangata suggests, El Niño-driven famine was by then a recurrent
experience).
In this chapter we have created a global context in which the building of Maori pa
and the appearance of cannibalism in New Zealand can be viewed not as surprising
local phenomena but as responses to global climate extremes. Both can be viewed
as evidence not only of a marked intensification of conflict over land and resources
in New Zealand during the Little Ice Age but also of the starvation provoking that
conflict. Such evidence and the recognition of climate-driven demography are a vital
background to our demographic argument for a very early first settlement. For, as
we have argued, populations in New Zealand high enough by the beginning of the
Little Ice Age to be exposed to widespread starvation following the loss of biota
imply a very considerable time depth in New Zealand for indigenous populations.
Population growth before AD 1200 with a settled hunter/gatherer society was inherently limited so that the establishment of high populations by the beginning of the
Little Ice Age is evidence for a long demographic history for Maori in New Zealand.
12.10 Erosion Triggered by Earthquake and Tsunami: Added
Destruction of Archaeological Evidence
The erosion history of New Zealand, we have argued following Grant, is climatedriven, linked to recurrent warm wet erosion periods. Recent geological and
geomorphological evidence, however, has focussed on another major cause of erosion in New Zealand linked not to wet erosion periods, which reflect global climate
patterns, but caused by local tectonic activity. Because New Zealand sits astride
the boundary or interface between two major tectonic plates, the Australian and
the Pacific, the country is tectonically active. Numerous fault lines and a history
of earthquake clusters and tsunamis reflect this activity. As with globally generated climate-driven erosion, major erosion in New Zealand resulting from local
tectonic plate movements would also have damaged biota. If populations were
close to their ceilings of sustainability this would have had a negative demographic impact. This is clearly the case for two major tsunamis with nationwide
impact, dated by Roy Walters and James Goff [26] to AD 1220 and AD 1450,
when Maori populations were high enough to have been threatened by a significant reduction of biota. The 1450 tsunami must have been especially catastrophic,
occurring at a time when starvation, two generations after the descent of the Little
12 The Context of Global Climate Change: Climate-Driven Demography
in tropical Polynesia by this date at least. The story shows a general rejection of
cannibalism: despite his name, Kai-tangata rejects the eating of human flesh, which
his pregnant demoness wife craves. This rejection of cannibalism is, however, combined with an implicit recognition that starvation and cannibalism occur together. A
general reluctance, or suggestion of guilt, emerges both in this story and perhaps in
New Zealand in the Little Ice Age in the claim that cannibalism had appeared there
for the first time. Maori insisted that it was not indigenous but had been brought
there by the medieval migrants from Eastern Polynesia (for whom, as the traditional story of Kai-tangata suggests, El Niño-driven famine was by then a recurrent
experience).
In this chapter we have created a global context in which the building of Maori pa
and the appearance of cannibalism in New Zealand can be viewed not as surprising
local phenomena but as responses to global climate extremes. Both can be viewed
as evidence not only of a marked intensification of conflict over land and resources
in New Zealand during the Little Ice Age but also of the starvation provoking that
conflict. Such evidence and the recognition of climate-driven demography are a vital
background to our demographic argument for a very early first settlement. For, as
we have argued, populations in New Zealand high enough by the beginning of the
Little Ice Age to be exposed to widespread starvation following the loss of biota
imply a very considerable time depth in New Zealand for indigenous populations.
Population growth before AD 1200 with a settled hunter/gatherer society was inherently limited so that the establishment of high populations by the beginning of the
Little Ice Age is evidence for a long demographic history for Maori in New Zealand.
12.10 Erosion Triggered by Earthquake and Tsunami: Added
Destruction of Archaeological Evidence
The erosion history of New Zealand, we have argued following Grant, is climatedriven, linked to recurrent warm wet erosion periods. Recent geological and
geomorphological evidence, however, has focussed on another major cause of erosion in New Zealand linked not to wet erosion periods, which reflect global climate
patterns, but caused by local tectonic activity. Because New Zealand sits astride
the boundary or interface between two major tectonic plates, the Australian and
the Pacific, the country is tectonically active. Numerous fault lines and a history
of earthquake clusters and tsunamis reflect this activity. As with globally generated climate-driven erosion, major erosion in New Zealand resulting from local
tectonic plate movements would also have damaged biota. If populations were
close to their ceilings of sustainability this would have had a negative demographic impact. This is clearly the case for two major tsunamis with nationwide
impact, dated by Roy Walters and James Goff [26] to AD 1220 and AD 1450,
when Maori populations were high enough to have been threatened by a significant reduction of biota. The 1450 tsunami must have been especially catastrophic,
occurring at a time when starvation, two generations after the descent of the Little