19.7 Two Polynesian Voyages of Exploration to the Antarctic
337
of travelling through seas choked with bull kelp, to have seen strange animals (possibly sea elephants) and snow or ice floating on the ocean “like congealed fat on
water” and, possibly in the case of Te Arutanga-a-Nuku, to tell of icebergs: “There
is also there [a kind of] rock whose summit pierces the sky with sharp bare cliffs,
where vegetation does not grow” [14]. We can only presume that there were unusually high temperatures in the southern hemisphere at both times, that there were
high sea surface temperatures associated with clusters of extreme El Niños that
remained high for most of the voyage (perhaps till the explorers encountered floating snow and ice), and that unusually strong seasonal winds drove both explorers
quickly south towards the Antarctic. Reaching the West Wind Drift the explorers
may well have seen snow and ice floating on the ocean and encountered icebergs and
bull kelp.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that these daring Polynesian voyages of
exploration must have been supported by extreme climatic and sailing conditions probably attributable to the coincidence of freakish global warm peaks with
clustered extreme El Niño events.
Te Arutanga-a-Nuku is 15 generations before Paikea on the main Rarotongan line
(see Appendix 1). Using the whakapapa generation parameters of Section 18.5, this
corresponds to a date for Te Arutanga-a-Nuku of about AD 1000 ± 55. The Nile
records display precisely one short clustered and intense El Niño between AD 900
and AD 1100. Accordingly we propose AD 967 as a dating for the southern voyage
of Te Arutanga-a-Nuku.
Ui-te-Rangiora lived 13 generations earlier. Arguing in the same way, we associate his southern voyage with the extreme El Niño years AD 687–696, peaking in
AD 689 and AD 694.
The consilience of extreme El Niño events each occurring within a closely spaced
cluster of El Niños is remarkable enough to support a claim for a very high likelihood for the voyaging times of both navigators. The period in which we have placed
Te Arutanga-a-Nuku’s voyage, AD 963–967, for example, lists five El Niños in five
consecutive years culminating in one of the two strongest El Niños recorded in the
891 years of Nile flood records. The El Niño pattern for the date we have chosen for
Ui-te-Rangiora’s voyage is as unusual. The remarkable consilience of chronological data from both climate history and genealogy enables us to claim these dates as
pillars for our chronology for Eastern Polynesian prehistory in the period covered
by the Nile proxy data.
There is some evidence for higher Antarctic temperatures at the time of both
Antarctic voyages. Lamb [15], for example, records the establishing of a “great
modern penguin rookery” on the coast of East Antarctica at Cape Hallett (72
◦ S,
170 ◦ E), dated by radiocarbon to “between about AD 400 and 700, presumably during a phase of improving climate”. This rookery has been occupied ever since. Of
relevance to Te Arutanga-a-Nuku’s later voyage, Lamb also notes “Earlier explorers of the Bunger Oasis (67 degrees south, 101 degrees east) suggested a period
of marked climatic improvement about 1000 years ago, since which there has been
only a modest reversion.”
337
of travelling through seas choked with bull kelp, to have seen strange animals (possibly sea elephants) and snow or ice floating on the ocean “like congealed fat on
water” and, possibly in the case of Te Arutanga-a-Nuku, to tell of icebergs: “There
is also there [a kind of] rock whose summit pierces the sky with sharp bare cliffs,
where vegetation does not grow” [14]. We can only presume that there were unusually high temperatures in the southern hemisphere at both times, that there were
high sea surface temperatures associated with clusters of extreme El Niños that
remained high for most of the voyage (perhaps till the explorers encountered floating snow and ice), and that unusually strong seasonal winds drove both explorers
quickly south towards the Antarctic. Reaching the West Wind Drift the explorers
may well have seen snow and ice floating on the ocean and encountered icebergs and
bull kelp.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that these daring Polynesian voyages of
exploration must have been supported by extreme climatic and sailing conditions probably attributable to the coincidence of freakish global warm peaks with
clustered extreme El Niño events.
Te Arutanga-a-Nuku is 15 generations before Paikea on the main Rarotongan line
(see Appendix 1). Using the whakapapa generation parameters of Section 18.5, this
corresponds to a date for Te Arutanga-a-Nuku of about AD 1000 ± 55. The Nile
records display precisely one short clustered and intense El Niño between AD 900
and AD 1100. Accordingly we propose AD 967 as a dating for the southern voyage
of Te Arutanga-a-Nuku.
Ui-te-Rangiora lived 13 generations earlier. Arguing in the same way, we associate his southern voyage with the extreme El Niño years AD 687–696, peaking in
AD 689 and AD 694.
The consilience of extreme El Niño events each occurring within a closely spaced
cluster of El Niños is remarkable enough to support a claim for a very high likelihood for the voyaging times of both navigators. The period in which we have placed
Te Arutanga-a-Nuku’s voyage, AD 963–967, for example, lists five El Niños in five
consecutive years culminating in one of the two strongest El Niños recorded in the
891 years of Nile flood records. The El Niño pattern for the date we have chosen for
Ui-te-Rangiora’s voyage is as unusual. The remarkable consilience of chronological data from both climate history and genealogy enables us to claim these dates as
pillars for our chronology for Eastern Polynesian prehistory in the period covered
by the Nile proxy data.
There is some evidence for higher Antarctic temperatures at the time of both
Antarctic voyages. Lamb [15], for example, records the establishing of a “great
modern penguin rookery” on the coast of East Antarctica at Cape Hallett (72
◦ S,
170 ◦ E), dated by radiocarbon to “between about AD 400 and 700, presumably during a phase of improving climate”. This rookery has been occupied ever since. Of
relevance to Te Arutanga-a-Nuku’s later voyage, Lamb also notes “Earlier explorers of the Bunger Oasis (67 degrees south, 101 degrees east) suggested a period
of marked climatic improvement about 1000 years ago, since which there has been
only a modest reversion.”