238
14 New Zealand Palaeodemography
chances of survival. Populations in the major pa areas of the north would have been
to some extent at least protected from the pressures towards population extinction
that are all too obvious from the evidence for environmental deterioration during
the Little Ice Age from midden analysis in all areas in the North Island and from
evidence of severe population decline implicit in the skeletal data.
It is likely, then, that the pressures towards extinction in New Zealand were most
felt in the south of the North Island. High populations, lower temperatures and correspondingly lower chances of successfully adapting tropical horticulture to provide
insurance against starvation, declining marine, forest and estuarine resources (due
both to the cold of the Little Ice Age and to erosion and environmental deterioration caused by slash-and-burn clearance of forest areas for horticulture) would
have contributed to persistently unfavourable conditions in the south of the North
Island. Significant population decline during the Little Ice Age would have been an
inevitable consequence and demographic recovery unlikely.
Environmental evidence that is specifically related to sites which contributed to
the skeletal evidence used by Brewis et al. records significant environmental deterioration during the Little Ice Age. The Wairarapa collection of skeletal remains,
for example, was recovered from three sites in Palliser Bay on the south coast of
the North Island. The Washpool Midden site contained five burials and other fragmentary material dated to the 12th century AD. Remains of two individuals were
recovered from a second site contemporaneous with the Washpool Midden. A third
site 2 km inland from the Washpool Midden contained remains of five individuals
dated to AD 1480 ±70.
Douglas Sutton [23] in a study of these sites notes
the increase in morbidity between the Washpool material and the cleft sample, that is
between the 12th and 15th Centuries AD. This is most clearly reflected in the evidence
of childhood illness which is virtually absent in the earlier people but universal in the later
situation. This marked contrast corresponds with a broad-scale environmental deterioration.
Sutton points to the large numbers of labrid fish which are present in the early
but not in the later sites, to the presence of “fern-root planes” in the teeth of the individuals at Washpool, suggesting unreliable kumara harvests, and to the contribution
of slash-and-burn horticulture to environmental deterioration through reduction “in
forest cover and increased sediment load in streams, which in turn affected coastal
ecology and the quality and quantity of marine resources” (p. 65).
Edward Visser [24] who studied regional variation in fertility notes, in connection
with Palliser Bay sites, that by AD 1350 the number of fish species caught had
declined by 50% and that by AD 1540 fish presence in middens “was minimal”.
Though birds from 43 species are earlier represented in middens, by AD 1350 “the
numbers of birds caught were so small as to be inconsequential in the diet” (p. 66).
Deterioration in biota in the Little Ice Age is recorded New Zealand-wide, though
the south of the South Island may have been least affected. In the North Island, as
we have seen, seal populations were depleted markedly by 1500, larger fish species
in middens declined and the changing availability of shellfish is evident.
14 New Zealand Palaeodemography
chances of survival. Populations in the major pa areas of the north would have been
to some extent at least protected from the pressures towards population extinction
that are all too obvious from the evidence for environmental deterioration during
the Little Ice Age from midden analysis in all areas in the North Island and from
evidence of severe population decline implicit in the skeletal data.
It is likely, then, that the pressures towards extinction in New Zealand were most
felt in the south of the North Island. High populations, lower temperatures and correspondingly lower chances of successfully adapting tropical horticulture to provide
insurance against starvation, declining marine, forest and estuarine resources (due
both to the cold of the Little Ice Age and to erosion and environmental deterioration caused by slash-and-burn clearance of forest areas for horticulture) would
have contributed to persistently unfavourable conditions in the south of the North
Island. Significant population decline during the Little Ice Age would have been an
inevitable consequence and demographic recovery unlikely.
Environmental evidence that is specifically related to sites which contributed to
the skeletal evidence used by Brewis et al. records significant environmental deterioration during the Little Ice Age. The Wairarapa collection of skeletal remains,
for example, was recovered from three sites in Palliser Bay on the south coast of
the North Island. The Washpool Midden site contained five burials and other fragmentary material dated to the 12th century AD. Remains of two individuals were
recovered from a second site contemporaneous with the Washpool Midden. A third
site 2 km inland from the Washpool Midden contained remains of five individuals
dated to AD 1480 ±70.
Douglas Sutton [23] in a study of these sites notes
the increase in morbidity between the Washpool material and the cleft sample, that is
between the 12th and 15th Centuries AD. This is most clearly reflected in the evidence
of childhood illness which is virtually absent in the earlier people but universal in the later
situation. This marked contrast corresponds with a broad-scale environmental deterioration.
Sutton points to the large numbers of labrid fish which are present in the early
but not in the later sites, to the presence of “fern-root planes” in the teeth of the individuals at Washpool, suggesting unreliable kumara harvests, and to the contribution
of slash-and-burn horticulture to environmental deterioration through reduction “in
forest cover and increased sediment load in streams, which in turn affected coastal
ecology and the quality and quantity of marine resources” (p. 65).
Edward Visser [24] who studied regional variation in fertility notes, in connection
with Palliser Bay sites, that by AD 1350 the number of fish species caught had
declined by 50% and that by AD 1540 fish presence in middens “was minimal”.
Though birds from 43 species are earlier represented in middens, by AD 1350 “the
numbers of birds caught were so small as to be inconsequential in the diet” (p. 66).
Deterioration in biota in the Little Ice Age is recorded New Zealand-wide, though
the south of the South Island may have been least affected. In the North Island, as
we have seen, seal populations were depleted markedly by 1500, larger fish species
in middens declined and the changing availability of shellfish is evident.