3.1 The West Pacific Warm Pool
41
Throughout the Ice Age, maritime trading for the Spice Islanders and for any
other coastal mariners in their immediate region would have been seasonally supported by the warm SSTs of the WPWP. But mariners sailing on bamboo rafts
lying low in the water would have been continually exposed to wet and windy
conditions. It has been estimated that winds were 30–70% stronger at the Last
Glacial Maximum than today [3]. The chill factor would have been correspondingly
greater, compounding the risk of hypothermia for mariners and generating selective
pressures for genetic cold resistance.
Although other Ice Age maritime traders in the region may have shared the
advantage of the high SSTs of the WPWP, the Spice Islanders had a geographical advantage. Their archipelago was poised between the two ancient continents of
Sahul and Sundaland. The latter was a vast continental area which included what
is now Island Southeast Asia and the Malaysian Peninsula and all the sea floor
between. The Spice Islanders’ pivotal position would have given them a trading
advantage over their coastal neighbours to the east and to the west, for their trading
journeys to Sahul or Sundaland would have been only half the distance of those for
their eastern or western neighbours who would have had to travel the whole distance
to or from Sahul to Sundaland. As the risk of hypothermia increases with distance,
that is, with the length of exposure to cold, the Spice Islanders’ pivotal position
would have given them a significant physiological advantage. Although some of
their neighbours may also have had long maritime histories, the Spice Islanders’
long existence in an archipelago dependent for survival on inter-island trade and
their possession of unique spices for trade may well have motivated an earlier
maritime development. Though the Bismarck archipelago possessed an important
trading resource in Talisean obsidian, none of the Spice Islanders’ possible trading
neighbours in New Guinea, the Bismarcks, Solomons and Borneo and Sulawesi,
located in or close to the southern boundary of the WPWP, lived on spice-growing
islands.
We shall argue that spice trading was fundamental rather than incidental to the
maritime development of the Spice Islanders, that it was probably a driving factor
in their evolution not only from local to regional trading but from regional trading
to international maritime trading. And that it was fundamental to their evolution
of the cold resistance and also of the horticultural skills and sailing strategies and
technologies that enabled them not only to become long-distance maritime spice
traders but also eventually to become the explorers and colonizers of the Pacific.
Palaeo-oceanographic evidence for high SSTs within the WPWP, making possible regional as well as local maritime trading even during the Ice Age, supports the
likely antiquity of the Spice Islanders’ regional as well as their local maritime history. It also highlights the central role played by the WPWP in Spice Island maritime
history. As we have seen probably 11,500 years was needed for the evolution of the
three defining sex-linked mutations, carried by Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and
Polynesians, which separate them from populations in Luzon, the Philippines and
Taiwan. A still greater antiquity is implicit in the evolution of the slower non-sexlinked genes conferring on Spice Islanders the cold resistance and famine resistance
that at various levels made possible the pursuit of spice trading at all stages in their
41
Throughout the Ice Age, maritime trading for the Spice Islanders and for any
other coastal mariners in their immediate region would have been seasonally supported by the warm SSTs of the WPWP. But mariners sailing on bamboo rafts
lying low in the water would have been continually exposed to wet and windy
conditions. It has been estimated that winds were 30–70% stronger at the Last
Glacial Maximum than today [3]. The chill factor would have been correspondingly
greater, compounding the risk of hypothermia for mariners and generating selective
pressures for genetic cold resistance.
Although other Ice Age maritime traders in the region may have shared the
advantage of the high SSTs of the WPWP, the Spice Islanders had a geographical advantage. Their archipelago was poised between the two ancient continents of
Sahul and Sundaland. The latter was a vast continental area which included what
is now Island Southeast Asia and the Malaysian Peninsula and all the sea floor
between. The Spice Islanders’ pivotal position would have given them a trading
advantage over their coastal neighbours to the east and to the west, for their trading
journeys to Sahul or Sundaland would have been only half the distance of those for
their eastern or western neighbours who would have had to travel the whole distance
to or from Sahul to Sundaland. As the risk of hypothermia increases with distance,
that is, with the length of exposure to cold, the Spice Islanders’ pivotal position
would have given them a significant physiological advantage. Although some of
their neighbours may also have had long maritime histories, the Spice Islanders’
long existence in an archipelago dependent for survival on inter-island trade and
their possession of unique spices for trade may well have motivated an earlier
maritime development. Though the Bismarck archipelago possessed an important
trading resource in Talisean obsidian, none of the Spice Islanders’ possible trading
neighbours in New Guinea, the Bismarcks, Solomons and Borneo and Sulawesi,
located in or close to the southern boundary of the WPWP, lived on spice-growing
islands.
We shall argue that spice trading was fundamental rather than incidental to the
maritime development of the Spice Islanders, that it was probably a driving factor
in their evolution not only from local to regional trading but from regional trading
to international maritime trading. And that it was fundamental to their evolution
of the cold resistance and also of the horticultural skills and sailing strategies and
technologies that enabled them not only to become long-distance maritime spice
traders but also eventually to become the explorers and colonizers of the Pacific.
Palaeo-oceanographic evidence for high SSTs within the WPWP, making possible regional as well as local maritime trading even during the Ice Age, supports the
likely antiquity of the Spice Islanders’ regional as well as their local maritime history. It also highlights the central role played by the WPWP in Spice Island maritime
history. As we have seen probably 11,500 years was needed for the evolution of the
three defining sex-linked mutations, carried by Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and
Polynesians, which separate them from populations in Luzon, the Philippines and
Taiwan. A still greater antiquity is implicit in the evolution of the slower non-sexlinked genes conferring on Spice Islanders the cold resistance and famine resistance
that at various levels made possible the pursuit of spice trading at all stages in their