13.6 Deflated Estimates for Prehistoric Populations
225
of the Battak people of Sumatra: “In the fortified villages of these people, we see
almost an exact description of the New Zealand pa.” More significantly, he quotes
Ling Roth’s description of forts in Borneo, already mentioned with grimacing heads
on 30-ft-high palisade posts. The details Roth supplies are too idiosyncratic to be
classified merely as being characteristic of Neolithic hill-forts.
Best adds that Roth also mentions “a stage or elevated platform inside the stockades, from which an attacking force was harassed”. There are other precise structural
details from forts in New Guinea that Best draws attention to: “Haddon’s statement
concerning the upward sloping stages secured to the upper part of the stockades of
fortified places of New Guinea, is of interest for such stages formed a marked feature of our pa maori of New Zealand” (p. 431). Best also mentions the use of tree
houses within the palisades used as stages and quotes examples of this practice in
New Zealand, and describes openings to forts in New Guinea closed by horizontal
sliding bars, also a feature in the Maori pa (p. 431).
These idiosyncratic details together with the whare wananga discussion of the
best kind of pa for the migrants to build in Borneo, quoted in Chapter 5, suggest
an ancient continuing tradition in fort construction in Borneo, Sumatra and New
Guinea that may have been preserved in the detail in New Zealand pa. Perhaps these
traditions were remembered and put into practice when growing populations, declining resources, the arrival of migration canoes in the Medieval Climatic Optimum
from Eastern Polynesia and starvation in the Little Ice Age threatened tribal security.
Remembered defensive practices, given an ancient homeland in the Spice Islands,
gives credence to such a possibility.
13.6 Deflated Estimates for Prehistoric Populations
To conclude this chapter, we present some observations on New Zealand palaeodemography made by the geographer Gordon Lewthwaite in 1999 [12]. Lewthwaite
comments that over the last 50 years he has noticed a “general acceptance of deflated
estimates” for the New Zealand population at the time of Cook’s voyages. He comments on the neglect of some higher estimates for the New Zealand population
which were made at first contact. He notes neglect of population estimates made
by missionaries and early settlers and of contemporary challenges to Cook’s estimate of 100,000. He comments also on late 20th century reductions of 19th century
census estimates and of modern neglect of 19th century estimates for population
losses in wars and epidemics which imply larger earlier populations than modern
demographers seem prepared to accept.
Accepting higher pre-contact and early 19th century population levels, of course,
presupposes higher population growth rates if a late first settlement is envisaged. It is
unclear whether the process of deflation that Lewthwaite notes was a consequence of
the claim in the last decade of the 20th century for a 12th century first settlement of
New Zealand or if it led to that claim. It is perhaps not coincidental that Anderson’s
paper arguing for a 12th century first settlement was published in the same year that
225
of the Battak people of Sumatra: “In the fortified villages of these people, we see
almost an exact description of the New Zealand pa.” More significantly, he quotes
Ling Roth’s description of forts in Borneo, already mentioned with grimacing heads
on 30-ft-high palisade posts. The details Roth supplies are too idiosyncratic to be
classified merely as being characteristic of Neolithic hill-forts.
Best adds that Roth also mentions “a stage or elevated platform inside the stockades, from which an attacking force was harassed”. There are other precise structural
details from forts in New Guinea that Best draws attention to: “Haddon’s statement
concerning the upward sloping stages secured to the upper part of the stockades of
fortified places of New Guinea, is of interest for such stages formed a marked feature of our pa maori of New Zealand” (p. 431). Best also mentions the use of tree
houses within the palisades used as stages and quotes examples of this practice in
New Zealand, and describes openings to forts in New Guinea closed by horizontal
sliding bars, also a feature in the Maori pa (p. 431).
These idiosyncratic details together with the whare wananga discussion of the
best kind of pa for the migrants to build in Borneo, quoted in Chapter 5, suggest
an ancient continuing tradition in fort construction in Borneo, Sumatra and New
Guinea that may have been preserved in the detail in New Zealand pa. Perhaps these
traditions were remembered and put into practice when growing populations, declining resources, the arrival of migration canoes in the Medieval Climatic Optimum
from Eastern Polynesia and starvation in the Little Ice Age threatened tribal security.
Remembered defensive practices, given an ancient homeland in the Spice Islands,
gives credence to such a possibility.
13.6 Deflated Estimates for Prehistoric Populations
To conclude this chapter, we present some observations on New Zealand palaeodemography made by the geographer Gordon Lewthwaite in 1999 [12]. Lewthwaite
comments that over the last 50 years he has noticed a “general acceptance of deflated
estimates” for the New Zealand population at the time of Cook’s voyages. He comments on the neglect of some higher estimates for the New Zealand population
which were made at first contact. He notes neglect of population estimates made
by missionaries and early settlers and of contemporary challenges to Cook’s estimate of 100,000. He comments also on late 20th century reductions of 19th century
census estimates and of modern neglect of 19th century estimates for population
losses in wars and epidemics which imply larger earlier populations than modern
demographers seem prepared to accept.
Accepting higher pre-contact and early 19th century population levels, of course,
presupposes higher population growth rates if a late first settlement is envisaged. It is
unclear whether the process of deflation that Lewthwaite notes was a consequence of
the claim in the last decade of the 20th century for a 12th century first settlement of
New Zealand or if it led to that claim. It is perhaps not coincidental that Anderson’s
paper arguing for a 12th century first settlement was published in the same year that