As an isolated island nation the colonization question has always been central to the study of New Zealand’s past and various models for the peopling of New Zealand have been proposed. Captain James Cook, during his exploratory visits in the late eighteenth century, described the Maori people of New Zealand as members of a wider Polynesian nation and despite some early speculation about pre-Polynesian migrations from Melanesia, the single origins of the Maori ancestors in island Polynesia is, today, undisputed. The more detailed questions that have engaged archaeologists are: where in Polynesia was New Zealand colonized from, and when did this happen. We address each of these issues in turn.
Maori tradition refers to a mythical homeland, Hawaiiki, from where the founding canoes set out on their long journey to New Zealand. The exact location of this homeland is not stated within the traditional histories, but there are hints of shared ancestral names and genealogies that suggest the Cook Islands as a likely place. Other lines of evidence are helpful but less precise. According to comparative ethnography, Maori society falls within an East Polynesian culture area that is defined on the basis of shared terminologies for key elements of social life, on kinship patterns, social organization, and on material culture. Linguistic models are consistent with this view. The Maori language of New Zealand belongs to a lower-order subgroup of the Polynesian language family known as Tahitic which includes Tahitian and most languages of the Cook Islands, the Austral Islands, and the Tuamotus. The archaeological record, while entirely consistent with linguistics and comparative ethnography, does not serve to narrow the field very much (Figure 1).
The earliest archaeological sites in New Zealand fall within the Archaic phase which is characterized by a distinctive artifact assemblage very similar to those found in sites of similar age in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. The artifacts include highly specialized stone adze forms, imitation whale-tooth necklaces, one-piece fish hooks and a variety of small bone tools. Many of these artifact forms display stylistic and functional variations that are never found in West Polynesia and this reinforces the notion of a distinct East Polynesian cultural complex of which New Zealand Maori culture is a part. At present all evidence points to Hawaiiki as being located within a zone encompassing the southern Cook Islands, the Austral Islands and the Society Islands. The argument of proximity plus aspects of oral history and tradition suggests that the southern Cook Islands is the most likely point of origin for the first canoes, but until stone tools are found in New Zealand that can be geochemically sourced to an East Polynesian island, it is unlikely that a more precise answer will be given soon.
The timing of settlement has been debated since the beginnings of New Zealand archaeology. Maori traditional accounts were used by nineteenth-century ethnographers to suggest an initial discovery around AD 800 followed by a massed colonization in about AD 1350 by around a dozen canoes. The advent of radiocarbon dating provided empirical evidence to supplement tradition, but still could not narrow this range down with any certainty. One study, based on
Figure 1 South Pacific Ocean showing location of New Zealand and the Polynesian homeland zone.
Palynological evidence for deforestation, raised the argument that settlement began as early as AD 500 and this led to a reassessment of existing dates. But instead of pushing the settlement date back, the result was to reject many of the existing dates and to move the estimated age of settlement to around AD 1200. There is still no real consensus among archaeologists although most believe that settlement occurred in the thirteenth to early fourteenth century. A possible terminus anti quem for New Zealand settlement exists in the tephrochronological record. About seven centuries ago a volcanic event known as the Kaharoa eruption resulted in the deposition of a thin ash layer over about a third of the North Island’s east coast. No in situ archaeological deposits have been found sealed below a securely identified primary deposit of Kaharoa Ash which has been accurately dated using wiggle matching of radiocarbon ages to AD 1314 ± 12 (Figure 2).
Early European explorers observed Polynesians using large double-hulled sailing canoes and rare examples of double-hulled craft were observed in use by Maori during Cook’s (1769-77) and Tasman’s (1642) visits to New Zealand. It is assumed that double-hulled voyaging canoes broadly similar to those observed by early European visitors were the vessels that brought the first settlers to this country. There has been much debate about the nature of the voyages of discovery. Were they accidental ‘drift’ voyages or deliberately targeted in specific directions. If deliberate, what was the clue that land existed as far as 3000 km over the horizon?
Computer simulations have shown that drift voyaging would not have been a successful exploration strategy and that the voyages must have involved deliberate navigation. One very obvious clue to the presence of land over the horizon would have been the flight paths of migratory birds. New Zealand had the largest number of marine bird species in the world and many are migratory. It has been estimated that several billion marine birds nested in New Zealand before the arrival of humans. Each year, for example, millions of mutton birds (Puffinus spp.) migrate between the north Pacific and New Zealand and at least some must have flown over eastern Polynesia during their journey south or north. Whatever the cause, the discovery voyage was deliberate. Once the direction of voyaging had been decided, sophisticated techniques of oceanic navigation including observations of wind direction, sea currents and wave patterns as well as the positions of the sun, moon and stars, would have made the journey itself relatively straightforward. With good winds, the voyaging canoes could have made the journey in less than two months.
World History
