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The Context of Field Archaeology
Pool rejected his 1977 estimate of 125,000–175,000 for the prehistoric population
at Cook’s arrival. In 1991 Pool claimed that it had become “impossible to envisage
a population size much above 110,000 to 115,000 in 1769. An argument suggesting
200,000 or greater would be particularly difficult to support” [13].
Lewthwaite’s comments on the population estimates made by naturalists aboard
The Endeavour are interesting. He reports the observations of J.F. Forster, naturalist on Cook’s second voyage (1772–1775) and of his son Georg, and of Joseph
Banks, naturalist on the first voyage (1768–1771). He quotes Banks’ conclusion
that “the sea coast was inhabited and that but sparingly, insomuch that the number of inhabitants seemed to bear no kind of proportion to the size of the country”
and Banks’ attribution of this to “their frequent wars”. He sees echoes of Banks’
phraseology in Georg Forster’s affirmation that the North Island “on a coast of
near four hundred leagues, contains scarcely one hundred thousand inhabitants”.
He records Georg Forster’s father’s noting “very few inhabitants” in the South
Island and his alluding to “the account we had from Captain Cook, and from
what we saw in some few places” which led to the estimate of “100,000 souls
in both isles”, though he felt this seeming consensus fell rather “short of the true
population”.
Lewthwaite cites factors he believes led to the naturalists’ underestimations of
the New Zealand prehistoric population:
Banks was correct in presuming emptiness for most of the South Island, but in the North
even the shorelines concealed much that navigating eyes could not perceive. Cook, zigzagging his storm-tossed way south from the North Cape saw only long lines of dunes,
writing “The Desert Coast” over a shoreline indented by the populous harbors of Hokianga,
Kaipara, and Manukau, whereas only occasional fires or canoes gave hint of habitation
near the Waikato coast or Taranaki bluffs. Banks, underscoring even shoreline sparseness,
added that “beside this the whole Coast from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Mount Egmont
and seven-eights of the Southern Island seems totally without people.” And what could
seafarers know of inland sites within Northland, along the Waikato and Whanganui rivers,
let alone those by the inland lakes of Rotorua, Taupo, and Waikaremoana?
Lewthwaite shows that modern population estimates are at odds with early
European population estimates and also at odds with 19th century estimates
for population losses from wars and epidemics which imply far higher earlier
populations:
As Bonwick expressed it in a simple geography text in 1856 – just before the first official
Maori census – the population of Cook’s time “is thought to have been at least half a million,
but exterminating wars, and raging epidemic diseases” had cut the number to one-fourth.
Archdeacon Walsh, underscoring populous districts unseen by Cook, the multiplicity of
empty forts, and the “immense area” bearing traces of former cultivation, envisaged total
numbers “not at one, but at many hundreds of thousands,” a total since halved by “the
inevitable chain of causation” that followed European contact.
Lewthwaite concludes:
Time-frames and statistics may vary, but similar thoughts appear in G. Mair’s estimate that
Hongi Hika’s wars (1822–1837) alone cost 40,000 lives, in Colenso’s view that deaths from
40 years of war before 1840 “far exceeded 60,000,” that one epidemic destroyed almost
three-fifths in the southern North Island, and S.P. Smith (cofounder of the Polynesian
The Context of Field Archaeology
Pool rejected his 1977 estimate of 125,000–175,000 for the prehistoric population
at Cook’s arrival. In 1991 Pool claimed that it had become “impossible to envisage
a population size much above 110,000 to 115,000 in 1769. An argument suggesting
200,000 or greater would be particularly difficult to support” [13].
Lewthwaite’s comments on the population estimates made by naturalists aboard
The Endeavour are interesting. He reports the observations of J.F. Forster, naturalist on Cook’s second voyage (1772–1775) and of his son Georg, and of Joseph
Banks, naturalist on the first voyage (1768–1771). He quotes Banks’ conclusion
that “the sea coast was inhabited and that but sparingly, insomuch that the number of inhabitants seemed to bear no kind of proportion to the size of the country”
and Banks’ attribution of this to “their frequent wars”. He sees echoes of Banks’
phraseology in Georg Forster’s affirmation that the North Island “on a coast of
near four hundred leagues, contains scarcely one hundred thousand inhabitants”.
He records Georg Forster’s father’s noting “very few inhabitants” in the South
Island and his alluding to “the account we had from Captain Cook, and from
what we saw in some few places” which led to the estimate of “100,000 souls
in both isles”, though he felt this seeming consensus fell rather “short of the true
population”.
Lewthwaite cites factors he believes led to the naturalists’ underestimations of
the New Zealand prehistoric population:
Banks was correct in presuming emptiness for most of the South Island, but in the North
even the shorelines concealed much that navigating eyes could not perceive. Cook, zigzagging his storm-tossed way south from the North Cape saw only long lines of dunes,
writing “The Desert Coast” over a shoreline indented by the populous harbors of Hokianga,
Kaipara, and Manukau, whereas only occasional fires or canoes gave hint of habitation
near the Waikato coast or Taranaki bluffs. Banks, underscoring even shoreline sparseness,
added that “beside this the whole Coast from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Mount Egmont
and seven-eights of the Southern Island seems totally without people.” And what could
seafarers know of inland sites within Northland, along the Waikato and Whanganui rivers,
let alone those by the inland lakes of Rotorua, Taupo, and Waikaremoana?
Lewthwaite shows that modern population estimates are at odds with early
European population estimates and also at odds with 19th century estimates
for population losses from wars and epidemics which imply far higher earlier
populations:
As Bonwick expressed it in a simple geography text in 1856 – just before the first official
Maori census – the population of Cook’s time “is thought to have been at least half a million,
but exterminating wars, and raging epidemic diseases” had cut the number to one-fourth.
Archdeacon Walsh, underscoring populous districts unseen by Cook, the multiplicity of
empty forts, and the “immense area” bearing traces of former cultivation, envisaged total
numbers “not at one, but at many hundreds of thousands,” a total since halved by “the
inevitable chain of causation” that followed European contact.
Lewthwaite concludes:
Time-frames and statistics may vary, but similar thoughts appear in G. Mair’s estimate that
Hongi Hika’s wars (1822–1837) alone cost 40,000 lives, in Colenso’s view that deaths from
40 years of war before 1840 “far exceeded 60,000,” that one epidemic destroyed almost
three-fifths in the southern North Island, and S.P. Smith (cofounder of the Polynesian