20.10 Some Implications of Our Chronological Method and Results
363
rarity of the climate (or volcanic) events recorded in proxy data makes correlations
with events recorded in tradition likely and establishes associated dating estimates
as robust.
20.10 Some Implications of Our Chronological
Method and Results
Our method, which correlates Polynesian genealogical data with climate proxy data,
might be seen as a marrying of science with tradition. Yet El Niño low Nile flood
proxy data is not a product of modern science. Rather it lists ancient records of low
Nile floods, which scientists interpret as proxy data for ancient El Niño events. The
chronological method we employed for studying oceanic migration in the southern
Pacific in the first millennium AD and in the Medieval Climatic Optimum in fact
combines two ancient data sources, ancient Egyptian records on the one hand,
ancient Polynesian genealogical records on the other. Whether preserved as written records or preserved orally and later transcribed, the historical value of both sets
of these ancient records is obvious.
The Huguang Maar data, on the other hand, is a direct result of modern scientific
research (analysis of titanium concentrations and magnetic susceptibility in lake
sediments). Like the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data, it confirms the closeness
of generational estimates from carefully preserved long genealogies to scientifically
and independently established climate estimates. The consilience of results from
such different sources confirms the value of traditions and of the genealogies on
which dating estimates for events in tradition largely depend. Climate proxy data
clearly provides a useful tool for sharpening the genealogical estimates, whose relative variability is a mark of their authenticity. Just how little these genealogical
estimates need to be sharpened is to some extent a measure of how accurately traditional knowledge is recorded in the best, most carefully preserved, genealogies and
on the relative constancy of their mean generation lengths (a factor that we have suggested was to a large extent ensured for the Moriori genealogies by the maintenance
in the Chatham Islands of a controlled population size over a long time span).
Traditional histories, secured to genealogies, underpinned by dozens of place
names assigned by migrants and preserved over long stretches of time, have been
largely ignored by archaeologists in the last 50 years. Invaders and conquerors
characteristically rewrite history. Often they obliterated the earlier histories of the
conquered peoples and imposed their own history on them or manipulated such
records for their own purposes. Uncharacteristically, early European prehistorians
in New Zealand tried to preserve indigenous history. Recent scholarship, however,
has reversed this conserving approach. Late settlement theorists deny 2,600 years
of indigenous history in claiming that New Zealand had no history prior to AD
1200. It is hardly surprising that the demography they suggest for New Zealand fails
to match either the archaeological (pa) evidence or the evidence from traditional
histories.
363
rarity of the climate (or volcanic) events recorded in proxy data makes correlations
with events recorded in tradition likely and establishes associated dating estimates
as robust.
20.10 Some Implications of Our Chronological
Method and Results
Our method, which correlates Polynesian genealogical data with climate proxy data,
might be seen as a marrying of science with tradition. Yet El Niño low Nile flood
proxy data is not a product of modern science. Rather it lists ancient records of low
Nile floods, which scientists interpret as proxy data for ancient El Niño events. The
chronological method we employed for studying oceanic migration in the southern
Pacific in the first millennium AD and in the Medieval Climatic Optimum in fact
combines two ancient data sources, ancient Egyptian records on the one hand,
ancient Polynesian genealogical records on the other. Whether preserved as written records or preserved orally and later transcribed, the historical value of both sets
of these ancient records is obvious.
The Huguang Maar data, on the other hand, is a direct result of modern scientific
research (analysis of titanium concentrations and magnetic susceptibility in lake
sediments). Like the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data, it confirms the closeness
of generational estimates from carefully preserved long genealogies to scientifically
and independently established climate estimates. The consilience of results from
such different sources confirms the value of traditions and of the genealogies on
which dating estimates for events in tradition largely depend. Climate proxy data
clearly provides a useful tool for sharpening the genealogical estimates, whose relative variability is a mark of their authenticity. Just how little these genealogical
estimates need to be sharpened is to some extent a measure of how accurately traditional knowledge is recorded in the best, most carefully preserved, genealogies and
on the relative constancy of their mean generation lengths (a factor that we have suggested was to a large extent ensured for the Moriori genealogies by the maintenance
in the Chatham Islands of a controlled population size over a long time span).
Traditional histories, secured to genealogies, underpinned by dozens of place
names assigned by migrants and preserved over long stretches of time, have been
largely ignored by archaeologists in the last 50 years. Invaders and conquerors
characteristically rewrite history. Often they obliterated the earlier histories of the
conquered peoples and imposed their own history on them or manipulated such
records for their own purposes. Uncharacteristically, early European prehistorians
in New Zealand tried to preserve indigenous history. Recent scholarship, however,
has reversed this conserving approach. Late settlement theorists deny 2,600 years
of indigenous history in claiming that New Zealand had no history prior to AD
1200. It is hardly surprising that the demography they suggest for New Zealand fails
to match either the archaeological (pa) evidence or the evidence from traditional
histories.