15.6 Summary of the Demographic Evidence in Part II
259
Neolithic culture into a modern world which possessed destructive possibilities so
far outside traditional experience and knowledge brought dangers as extreme to the
Maori as their contact with the invisible European diseases. The near-fatal impact
was biological, military, cultural and psychological. It caused an undermining of
the beliefs and of the social and traditional practices that had given certainty to their
world. Rapid forced adaptation was the only hope for survival and probably few
could meet its demands.
Belich claims that the “enduring myth of fatal impact” was strong enough both
“to overshoot the evidence on Maori depopulation” and to propagate the myth that
Maori had “undergone socio-cultural collapse”. Belich’s claims were made without
the advantages of the demographic insights that follow from our revised analysis of
skeletal data in the last chapter and from correlations in 1445 of estimated pa populations with new data-based estimates for pa capacity. He had no knowledge therefore
of the severe demographic losses of the order of 92–93% suffered by Maori populations between 1445 and 1801 – a figure which we have seen increased to around
98% by 1896. Analysis of the demographic patterns involved makes it impossible to ignore the catastrophic consequences for the Maori world of climate-driven
population collapse followed by the near-fatal impact of European contact.
The survival of any tribal history and traditional knowledge is remarkable after
such a loss and suggests the robustness of the systems of traditional learning and the
transmission of oral traditions in place at the time of European contact.
15.6 Summary of the Demographic Evidence in Part II
In Part II we have proposed and illustrated a context of climate-driven demography
linking high populations exposed to resource depletion, due to climate stress, with
starvation, warfare, cannibalism and population collapse. We have demonstrated
the relevance of this context from demographic patterns in northern Europe with
populations increasing significantly in the Medieval Climatic Optimum and then
suffering extreme decline in the Little Ice Age, with repeated crop failures leading to widespread starvation and with cannibalism a measure of desperation in the
starving. We have shown more complex and persisting examples of climate-driven
demography operating in tropical Polynesia, North America and New Zealand in
the same climate periods. We have set evidence for starvation and cannibalism and
for conflict over land and resources in New Zealand in a global context in which the
warmest period in over 2,000 years was followed by the coldest conditions in 1,800
years and in which catastrophic population losses occurred almost worldwide.
This material has provided a context in which to read the demographic evidence
presented in Chapter 14. A modern statistical analysis of the skeletal evidence, studied by Brewis, Molloy and Sutton, gives explicit quantifiable evidence for drastic
population loss in the poorer areas in Little Ice Age New Zealand.
New evidence from field archaeology relating to Maori pa has made it possible to estimate the total population capacity of pa in 1445 and to use this with
Rutherford’s and Urlich’s population estimates for 1801 to determine differential
259
Neolithic culture into a modern world which possessed destructive possibilities so
far outside traditional experience and knowledge brought dangers as extreme to the
Maori as their contact with the invisible European diseases. The near-fatal impact
was biological, military, cultural and psychological. It caused an undermining of
the beliefs and of the social and traditional practices that had given certainty to their
world. Rapid forced adaptation was the only hope for survival and probably few
could meet its demands.
Belich claims that the “enduring myth of fatal impact” was strong enough both
“to overshoot the evidence on Maori depopulation” and to propagate the myth that
Maori had “undergone socio-cultural collapse”. Belich’s claims were made without
the advantages of the demographic insights that follow from our revised analysis of
skeletal data in the last chapter and from correlations in 1445 of estimated pa populations with new data-based estimates for pa capacity. He had no knowledge therefore
of the severe demographic losses of the order of 92–93% suffered by Maori populations between 1445 and 1801 – a figure which we have seen increased to around
98% by 1896. Analysis of the demographic patterns involved makes it impossible to ignore the catastrophic consequences for the Maori world of climate-driven
population collapse followed by the near-fatal impact of European contact.
The survival of any tribal history and traditional knowledge is remarkable after
such a loss and suggests the robustness of the systems of traditional learning and the
transmission of oral traditions in place at the time of European contact.
15.6 Summary of the Demographic Evidence in Part II
In Part II we have proposed and illustrated a context of climate-driven demography
linking high populations exposed to resource depletion, due to climate stress, with
starvation, warfare, cannibalism and population collapse. We have demonstrated
the relevance of this context from demographic patterns in northern Europe with
populations increasing significantly in the Medieval Climatic Optimum and then
suffering extreme decline in the Little Ice Age, with repeated crop failures leading to widespread starvation and with cannibalism a measure of desperation in the
starving. We have shown more complex and persisting examples of climate-driven
demography operating in tropical Polynesia, North America and New Zealand in
the same climate periods. We have set evidence for starvation and cannibalism and
for conflict over land and resources in New Zealand in a global context in which the
warmest period in over 2,000 years was followed by the coldest conditions in 1,800
years and in which catastrophic population losses occurred almost worldwide.
This material has provided a context in which to read the demographic evidence
presented in Chapter 14. A modern statistical analysis of the skeletal evidence, studied by Brewis, Molloy and Sutton, gives explicit quantifiable evidence for drastic
population loss in the poorer areas in Little Ice Age New Zealand.
New evidence from field archaeology relating to Maori pa has made it possible to estimate the total population capacity of pa in 1445 and to use this with
Rutherford’s and Urlich’s population estimates for 1801 to determine differential