21 A Consilience of Evidence
377
traditions in enriching as well as unravelling prehistory. In Part III our study of the
genealogies that underpin Polynesian traditional histories enables us to sketch a long
chronology for Pacific prehistory. This chronology, and the reservoir of traditional
histories it is drawn from, complements the archaeological context, in which history
is read from artefacts, with contexts that involve a more traditional focus – a focus
which includes awareness of the personalities of the ancestors who helped shape
traditional history and of the tales that recount their voyaging exploits.
Traditional histories and the genealogies that underpin them have enabled us
to sketch a long chronology for New Zealand prehistory in the apparent absence
of securely dated archaeological evidence. With the earliest settlements buried
by the successive erosion events Grant describes, with evidence of major coastal
erosion from recurrent New Zealand-wide tsunamis, with no radiocarbon dates
before the 12th century regarded as acceptable by some archaeologists, we have
had to turn to subtler sources of evidence for an early first settlement of New
Zealand. We have had to call on contexts such as genetics and mythology and
point to the preservation of ancient (Lapita-age) totemic myths which were vestigially present in New Zealand but well preserved in the Chatham Islands. Yet
underpinning these rarer contexts and subtler sources of evidence is evidence
from another context: the irrefutable demographic evidence implicit in those most
remarkable of Maori artefacts, the 7,000 pa that protected the horticultural landscapes of New Zealand. We have offered a new reading of these artefacts in the
context of falling populations, seen as part of a worldwide pattern of climate-driven
population loss in the Little Ice Age. A context of climate-driven demography is
shown to be centrally relevant to an understanding of New Zealand palaeodemography and of the three and a half thousand year time depth which study of this
palaeodemography reveals.
A Lapita-age colonization of New Zealand challenges the view of New Zealand
as the most remote land in the Pacific which was logically settled last. Instead, in
the light of our paradigm, the settlement of New Zealand is seen as belonging to and
playing a significant part in the peopling of the Pacific in the 2,000-year-long period
during which the Spice Islands, not Western or Eastern Polynesia, were the base for
Polynesian expansion.
In Part II, we study Pacific prehistory in the context of global climate history –
a focus that brings new insight to analysis. We use evidence for global climate change in combination with mathematics to study the impact of global
climate extremes on demography in prehistoric New Zealand. This opens the
way to a different view of Maori prehistory in the past 900 years. Our revision of an existing demographic study, based on skeletal evidence, and additional evidence from field archaeology, results in our being able to demonstrate
a catastrophic population loss during the Little Ice Age of the order of 93%
for Maori from AD 1445 to AD 1800. Highlighting the catastrophic consequences of global climate change impacting on ecology, we are able to show,
through evidence of starvation and associated conflict over land and resources, the
human consequences of extreme climate change in prehistoric New Zealand. We
demonstrate the same patterns of climate-driven starvation, conflict and enforced
377
traditions in enriching as well as unravelling prehistory. In Part III our study of the
genealogies that underpin Polynesian traditional histories enables us to sketch a long
chronology for Pacific prehistory. This chronology, and the reservoir of traditional
histories it is drawn from, complements the archaeological context, in which history
is read from artefacts, with contexts that involve a more traditional focus – a focus
which includes awareness of the personalities of the ancestors who helped shape
traditional history and of the tales that recount their voyaging exploits.
Traditional histories and the genealogies that underpin them have enabled us
to sketch a long chronology for New Zealand prehistory in the apparent absence
of securely dated archaeological evidence. With the earliest settlements buried
by the successive erosion events Grant describes, with evidence of major coastal
erosion from recurrent New Zealand-wide tsunamis, with no radiocarbon dates
before the 12th century regarded as acceptable by some archaeologists, we have
had to turn to subtler sources of evidence for an early first settlement of New
Zealand. We have had to call on contexts such as genetics and mythology and
point to the preservation of ancient (Lapita-age) totemic myths which were vestigially present in New Zealand but well preserved in the Chatham Islands. Yet
underpinning these rarer contexts and subtler sources of evidence is evidence
from another context: the irrefutable demographic evidence implicit in those most
remarkable of Maori artefacts, the 7,000 pa that protected the horticultural landscapes of New Zealand. We have offered a new reading of these artefacts in the
context of falling populations, seen as part of a worldwide pattern of climate-driven
population loss in the Little Ice Age. A context of climate-driven demography is
shown to be centrally relevant to an understanding of New Zealand palaeodemography and of the three and a half thousand year time depth which study of this
palaeodemography reveals.
A Lapita-age colonization of New Zealand challenges the view of New Zealand
as the most remote land in the Pacific which was logically settled last. Instead, in
the light of our paradigm, the settlement of New Zealand is seen as belonging to and
playing a significant part in the peopling of the Pacific in the 2,000-year-long period
during which the Spice Islands, not Western or Eastern Polynesia, were the base for
Polynesian expansion.
In Part II, we study Pacific prehistory in the context of global climate history –
a focus that brings new insight to analysis. We use evidence for global climate change in combination with mathematics to study the impact of global
climate extremes on demography in prehistoric New Zealand. This opens the
way to a different view of Maori prehistory in the past 900 years. Our revision of an existing demographic study, based on skeletal evidence, and additional evidence from field archaeology, results in our being able to demonstrate
a catastrophic population loss during the Little Ice Age of the order of 93%
for Maori from AD 1445 to AD 1800. Highlighting the catastrophic consequences of global climate change impacting on ecology, we are able to show,
through evidence of starvation and associated conflict over land and resources, the
human consequences of extreme climate change in prehistoric New Zealand. We
demonstrate the same patterns of climate-driven starvation, conflict and enforced