354
20 Dating the First Migration to New Zealand
cannot reach it. Because of this, innovation in material culture is slowed. Because the population is small, activities and knowledge may be lost simply through the early death of
skilled people before they can pass their skills to the next generation.
Losses such as that of clothing and the ability to make fire may have resulted from rare,
early deaths occurring over a long period of time. The 5000 Tasmanians lived scattered in
small groups. It may be that only one or two people in any one group had all the skills
necessary to make bone needles and prepare skins. Over 10,000 years there is a high chance
that the few such specialists in any one area would, at some stage, die before they could
pass their skills on. Repeated chance events like this might have led to the loss of many
skills that require specialised knowledge. These may have included the ability to make
bone needles and thus clothing, fire-making equipment, hafted tools, boomerangs and spear
throwers.
Flannery develops this interesting argument further. We present his argument in
detail because it casts light on the problems almost certainly encountered by the
Lapita colonists isolated in New Zealand by a severe global cold period after about
1000 BC and on the problems encountered by the most isolated Polynesians of all,
the Moriori of the Chatham Islands:
If the population is small enough, there may be strong evolutionary pressure to dispense
with high-risk activities. This is because risks that are acceptable for large populations can
threaten the very survival of smaller ones. The loss of fish from the Tasmanian diet may be
an example of a high-risk activity that is strongly selected against and thus lost, in small
populations.
Eating fish can be a risky business, because occasionally a dinoflagellate bloom known as
a ‘red tide’ can lead to mass poisoning. The simultaneous death of hundreds of people in a
large human population is a great personal tragedy, but it poses no threat to the survival of
that society because the statistical chance of losing all members of one age group or sex is
tiny. Such a poisoning in a small population, however, can be a disaster for the entire group.
This is because, through chance, it may kill a significant proportion of the women of childbearing age, or all of the older and more knowledgeable individuals. In order to avoid such
catastrophic events, extreme conservatism may be selected for in small societies. This is
because in evolutionary terms it may be better to forego the benefit gained from eating such
‘dangerous’ food as fish, rather than risk an extremely rare but catastrophic poisoning event.
This very necessary adaptation of course carries a severe penalty, for resources normally
available to people in other circumstances are denied to small groups in already vulnerable
situations.
Incidentally, the final loss of bone needles from the archaeological record occurs at about
the same time that fish disappear, suggesting that these events may be related. If a large
number of Tasmanians did perish due to fish poisoning some 3500 years ago, it may be that
the last people who possessed the knowledge to manufacture and use bone points died in
the catastrophe before their skills could be passed on (pp. 268–169).
That isolation and a near-extinction event may have led to the loss of material
culture in New Zealand, and that initially, as with the Tasmanians, it may even have
led to the loss of fire-making, is suggested not only by the Moriori tradition that
Tangaroa-matahi and his descendants ate raw food but by the anger of Maui the
Navigator, recorded in tradition, at the “stupidity” of the descendants of the first
New Zealanders, their loss of traditional skills, their technological impoverishment
during perhaps 1,500 years of isolation in New Zealand. It appears that tradition,
offering a faithful account of the remarkable historical encounter of Maui with the
20 Dating the First Migration to New Zealand
cannot reach it. Because of this, innovation in material culture is slowed. Because the population is small, activities and knowledge may be lost simply through the early death of
skilled people before they can pass their skills to the next generation.
Losses such as that of clothing and the ability to make fire may have resulted from rare,
early deaths occurring over a long period of time. The 5000 Tasmanians lived scattered in
small groups. It may be that only one or two people in any one group had all the skills
necessary to make bone needles and prepare skins. Over 10,000 years there is a high chance
that the few such specialists in any one area would, at some stage, die before they could
pass their skills on. Repeated chance events like this might have led to the loss of many
skills that require specialised knowledge. These may have included the ability to make
bone needles and thus clothing, fire-making equipment, hafted tools, boomerangs and spear
throwers.
Flannery develops this interesting argument further. We present his argument in
detail because it casts light on the problems almost certainly encountered by the
Lapita colonists isolated in New Zealand by a severe global cold period after about
1000 BC and on the problems encountered by the most isolated Polynesians of all,
the Moriori of the Chatham Islands:
If the population is small enough, there may be strong evolutionary pressure to dispense
with high-risk activities. This is because risks that are acceptable for large populations can
threaten the very survival of smaller ones. The loss of fish from the Tasmanian diet may be
an example of a high-risk activity that is strongly selected against and thus lost, in small
populations.
Eating fish can be a risky business, because occasionally a dinoflagellate bloom known as
a ‘red tide’ can lead to mass poisoning. The simultaneous death of hundreds of people in a
large human population is a great personal tragedy, but it poses no threat to the survival of
that society because the statistical chance of losing all members of one age group or sex is
tiny. Such a poisoning in a small population, however, can be a disaster for the entire group.
This is because, through chance, it may kill a significant proportion of the women of childbearing age, or all of the older and more knowledgeable individuals. In order to avoid such
catastrophic events, extreme conservatism may be selected for in small societies. This is
because in evolutionary terms it may be better to forego the benefit gained from eating such
‘dangerous’ food as fish, rather than risk an extremely rare but catastrophic poisoning event.
This very necessary adaptation of course carries a severe penalty, for resources normally
available to people in other circumstances are denied to small groups in already vulnerable
situations.
Incidentally, the final loss of bone needles from the archaeological record occurs at about
the same time that fish disappear, suggesting that these events may be related. If a large
number of Tasmanians did perish due to fish poisoning some 3500 years ago, it may be that
the last people who possessed the knowledge to manufacture and use bone points died in
the catastrophe before their skills could be passed on (pp. 268–169).
That isolation and a near-extinction event may have led to the loss of material
culture in New Zealand, and that initially, as with the Tasmanians, it may even have
led to the loss of fire-making, is suggested not only by the Moriori tradition that
Tangaroa-matahi and his descendants ate raw food but by the anger of Maui the
Navigator, recorded in tradition, at the “stupidity” of the descendants of the first
New Zealanders, their loss of traditional skills, their technological impoverishment
during perhaps 1,500 years of isolation in New Zealand. It appears that tradition,
offering a faithful account of the remarkable historical encounter of Maui with the