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20 Dating the First Migration to New Zealand
Rakaihautu – whose migration we suggest occurred in AD 841/2 – sailing down
the east coast of the North Island is said to have found the North Island already fully
occupied. He decided to explore and settle in the South Island instead. In Section
15.2 we estimated a population growth rate of 0.307% from 1358 BC to AD 1445
for the pa areas of the North Island. With the estimate of a founder population of
289, this supplies an estimated population for the north of the North Island in AD
841 of just over a quarter of a million. If we take the non-pa population in 1445 as
36% of the total population of the North Island (a figure matching 10,000 survivors
in 1801), the corresponding total population for the North Island in AD 841 would
be just under 400,000. Given this estimate, it is hardly surprising that, as tradition
tells us, Rakaihautu decided that the North Island was fully settled.
Though conveniently ignored by late settlement theorists, the recording of early
significant populations challenges current assumptions. As does the record from
tradition that at the time of the Heke there were 22 tribal divisions claiming descent
from Toi, whose people had intermarried with the tangata whenua of Whakatane
and nearby districts [14]. The title “Tini o Toi”, the great multitude of Toi, said to
have been “swarming like ants”, makes more sense, given our demographic estimate
of 1,561,000 for the total pa population in 1445 than could any possible population
estimate based on a time depth of only 200 years. Tradition supports our claims
from demographic analysis both for a very significant time depth for settlement and
for high populations at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. As we have seen, high
populations at this time are a corollary to the climate-driven negative demographic
parameters that we showed in Chapter 15 led to an effective loss by 1801 of 92–93%
of the North Island population of 1445.
That there was a sizeable population in New Zealand by the time of Rakaihautu
is clear not only from subsequent levels of population loss but also from evidence of
early pa-building. Tradition records, for example, that the Ope-ruaraki people, who
may have arrived in about AD 713 in the Te Ara-tau-whaiti canoe under Taiehu,
“as a means of protection against the people already in the country built a stockade
or pa which they named Ritua” [11]. Toi’s pa in Whakatane, Kapu-te-Rangi, was
presumably also a migrant people’s defence against the large numbers of indigenous
people in the area in which he settled.
Matching archaeological evidence to traditional history has always been a problem in New Zealand, largely because New Zealand lacks readily datable artefacts
from which to construct cultural sequences. The vexed question of admissible radiocarbon dates has compounded problems of interpretation as well as of chronology.
Our attempt in Part II to study archaeological evidence implicit in Maori pa, of all
artefacts the hardest to ignore, and especially to analyse the demographic implications of the pa evidence, belongs to a more comprehensive attempt to match
traditional history with archaeological evidence and climate history. Evidence for
sharply falling populations by 1445 reveals demographic patterns, at odds with current historical interpretations, but very much in accord with traditional histories and
climate research.
Our analysis in this chapter of the ancient genealogies preserved in the Chatham
Islands shows the potential inherent in preserved traditions for illuminating the early
20 Dating the First Migration to New Zealand
Rakaihautu – whose migration we suggest occurred in AD 841/2 – sailing down
the east coast of the North Island is said to have found the North Island already fully
occupied. He decided to explore and settle in the South Island instead. In Section
15.2 we estimated a population growth rate of 0.307% from 1358 BC to AD 1445
for the pa areas of the North Island. With the estimate of a founder population of
289, this supplies an estimated population for the north of the North Island in AD
841 of just over a quarter of a million. If we take the non-pa population in 1445 as
36% of the total population of the North Island (a figure matching 10,000 survivors
in 1801), the corresponding total population for the North Island in AD 841 would
be just under 400,000. Given this estimate, it is hardly surprising that, as tradition
tells us, Rakaihautu decided that the North Island was fully settled.
Though conveniently ignored by late settlement theorists, the recording of early
significant populations challenges current assumptions. As does the record from
tradition that at the time of the Heke there were 22 tribal divisions claiming descent
from Toi, whose people had intermarried with the tangata whenua of Whakatane
and nearby districts [14]. The title “Tini o Toi”, the great multitude of Toi, said to
have been “swarming like ants”, makes more sense, given our demographic estimate
of 1,561,000 for the total pa population in 1445 than could any possible population
estimate based on a time depth of only 200 years. Tradition supports our claims
from demographic analysis both for a very significant time depth for settlement and
for high populations at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. As we have seen, high
populations at this time are a corollary to the climate-driven negative demographic
parameters that we showed in Chapter 15 led to an effective loss by 1801 of 92–93%
of the North Island population of 1445.
That there was a sizeable population in New Zealand by the time of Rakaihautu
is clear not only from subsequent levels of population loss but also from evidence of
early pa-building. Tradition records, for example, that the Ope-ruaraki people, who
may have arrived in about AD 713 in the Te Ara-tau-whaiti canoe under Taiehu,
“as a means of protection against the people already in the country built a stockade
or pa which they named Ritua” [11]. Toi’s pa in Whakatane, Kapu-te-Rangi, was
presumably also a migrant people’s defence against the large numbers of indigenous
people in the area in which he settled.
Matching archaeological evidence to traditional history has always been a problem in New Zealand, largely because New Zealand lacks readily datable artefacts
from which to construct cultural sequences. The vexed question of admissible radiocarbon dates has compounded problems of interpretation as well as of chronology.
Our attempt in Part II to study archaeological evidence implicit in Maori pa, of all
artefacts the hardest to ignore, and especially to analyse the demographic implications of the pa evidence, belongs to a more comprehensive attempt to match
traditional history with archaeological evidence and climate history. Evidence for
sharply falling populations by 1445 reveals demographic patterns, at odds with current historical interpretations, but very much in accord with traditional histories and
climate research.
Our analysis in this chapter of the ancient genealogies preserved in the Chatham
Islands shows the potential inherent in preserved traditions for illuminating the early