378
21 A Consilience of Evidence
migration in tropical Polynesia and worldwide wherever resource ceilings, lowered
through the impact of climate extremes, were breached.
There has been a concerted effort by modern prehistorians to “de-Smith” Pacific
prehistory, to disparage the work of early Pacific prehistorians from the late
19th and early 20th centuries, such as S. Percy Smith, Abraham Fornander and
Edward Tregear, who also constructed chronologies for Pacific prehistory based
on Polynesian genealogies. The climate-anchored chronology for Pacific prehistory
that we sketch to some extent validates the chronologies of the early Pacific prehistorians and reasserts the importance of oral traditions as historical sources. It brings
new clarity to the study of Pacific prehistory which in the last 50 years has been
hampered in its attempts to construct a robust chronology by the lack of preserved
and datable artefacts and controversies surrounding radiocarbon dating.
In the last section of the book, as part of our task of sketching a chronology for
Pacific prehistory, we argue for the historicity of the last great migration to New
Zealand. Thirty years ago this migration, popularly known as the Heke and once
taught as history to every New Zealand schoolchild, was dismissed as a white man’s
myth by David Simmons. Combining evidence from new and old contexts, we challenge Simmons’ dismissal of this migration as myth. We use statistical methods to
disprove Simmons’ claims that the canoes of the Heke were not even contemporaneous. To disprove Simmons’ claims that New Zealand traditions about the canoes
of the Heke referred only to internal migrations within New Zealand, we analyse the
conflict over land and resources in Tahiti that prompted the last great migration and
was recorded in Rarotongan and Maori tradition. We then use El Niño events and a
solar eclipse recorded in tradition to date the last migration to New Zealand, demonstrating the potential value of the Heke traditions as historical sources and providing
an anchor point for the climate-linked chronology we define in Chapter 19.
Perhaps most importantly Part III shows the role of extreme climate events, some
with a Pacific-wide impact, in shaping Pacific history. Specifically in Part III we
show the correlations of such events with major migrations, from the first migration
to New Zealand nearly 3,400 years ago to the last migration to New Zealand in AD
1403. From the second half of the first millennium AD to the end of the Medieval
Climatic Optimum (the period covered by the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data,
which has an annual resolution), it has been possible to date some major migrations and long-distance voyaging activity to within a year. For dating significant
events in early New Zealand and Moriori prehistory, we have been able to use a second climate proxy with a greater time range, created through analysis of titanium
concentrations and magnetic susceptibility in sediment from Lake Huguang Maar in
southeastern coastal China. With this high-resolution climate proxy data we are able
to show that the early history of oceanic migration, not covered by the El Niño low
Nile proxy data, was as clearly climate-driven as migrations in later periods. We are
able to show that over a span of close to 3,000 years long-distance oceanic migration
and significant voyaging activity can be correlated with rare extreme climate events,
often events with Pacific-wide impact.
The value of both climate proxies, of low Nile flood data and of the Lake
Huguang Maar data, rests on their high resolution. Extreme El Niño events can
21 A Consilience of Evidence
migration in tropical Polynesia and worldwide wherever resource ceilings, lowered
through the impact of climate extremes, were breached.
There has been a concerted effort by modern prehistorians to “de-Smith” Pacific
prehistory, to disparage the work of early Pacific prehistorians from the late
19th and early 20th centuries, such as S. Percy Smith, Abraham Fornander and
Edward Tregear, who also constructed chronologies for Pacific prehistory based
on Polynesian genealogies. The climate-anchored chronology for Pacific prehistory
that we sketch to some extent validates the chronologies of the early Pacific prehistorians and reasserts the importance of oral traditions as historical sources. It brings
new clarity to the study of Pacific prehistory which in the last 50 years has been
hampered in its attempts to construct a robust chronology by the lack of preserved
and datable artefacts and controversies surrounding radiocarbon dating.
In the last section of the book, as part of our task of sketching a chronology for
Pacific prehistory, we argue for the historicity of the last great migration to New
Zealand. Thirty years ago this migration, popularly known as the Heke and once
taught as history to every New Zealand schoolchild, was dismissed as a white man’s
myth by David Simmons. Combining evidence from new and old contexts, we challenge Simmons’ dismissal of this migration as myth. We use statistical methods to
disprove Simmons’ claims that the canoes of the Heke were not even contemporaneous. To disprove Simmons’ claims that New Zealand traditions about the canoes
of the Heke referred only to internal migrations within New Zealand, we analyse the
conflict over land and resources in Tahiti that prompted the last great migration and
was recorded in Rarotongan and Maori tradition. We then use El Niño events and a
solar eclipse recorded in tradition to date the last migration to New Zealand, demonstrating the potential value of the Heke traditions as historical sources and providing
an anchor point for the climate-linked chronology we define in Chapter 19.
Perhaps most importantly Part III shows the role of extreme climate events, some
with a Pacific-wide impact, in shaping Pacific history. Specifically in Part III we
show the correlations of such events with major migrations, from the first migration
to New Zealand nearly 3,400 years ago to the last migration to New Zealand in AD
1403. From the second half of the first millennium AD to the end of the Medieval
Climatic Optimum (the period covered by the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data,
which has an annual resolution), it has been possible to date some major migrations and long-distance voyaging activity to within a year. For dating significant
events in early New Zealand and Moriori prehistory, we have been able to use a second climate proxy with a greater time range, created through analysis of titanium
concentrations and magnetic susceptibility in sediment from Lake Huguang Maar in
southeastern coastal China. With this high-resolution climate proxy data we are able
to show that the early history of oceanic migration, not covered by the El Niño low
Nile proxy data, was as clearly climate-driven as migrations in later periods. We are
able to show that over a span of close to 3,000 years long-distance oceanic migration
and significant voyaging activity can be correlated with rare extreme climate events,
often events with Pacific-wide impact.
The value of both climate proxies, of low Nile flood data and of the Lake
Huguang Maar data, rests on their high resolution. Extreme El Niño events can