Pacific Colonization Single Pulse Eight Centuries Ago

What is missing in thesediscussions is the forgotten fact that communication remained two way.  Thus the existence of a new island able toabsorb two thousand new settlers found its way back and this triggered a massmigration.  The success of that migrationthen triggered active exploration in all directions from the new island and thatquickly led to the discovery of New Zealand and others.

The same thing took place and allthese outliers were quickly colonized with sufficient manpower to allow full populationsin three centuries as happened.

My point is that the island discoveriestriggered an inflow of population that abrogated any need to wait fro naturalgrowth to encourage further expansion. It could all have happened over one man’s lifetime.

Pacificcolonisation one big 'pulse'

TOM HUNT

Last updated 05:00 29/12/2010

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4498668/Pacific-colonisation-one-big-pulse

Academics are calling for a rewrite of Pacific history after newresearch indicating the immigration wave that colonised islands around New Zealandis out by about 400 years.

Academics are calling for a rewrite of Pacific history after newresearch indicating the immigration wave that colonised islands around New Zealand isout by about 400 years.

An historian says the peer-reviewed and published findings could callinto question the notion of Maori as indigenous people.

The findings showed that islands such as Easter and Marquesas, as wellas Hawaii, were settled hundreds of yearslater than thought, about the same time as New Zealand, researchers said.

The research – led by Janet Wilmshurst from New Zealand's LandcareResearch, and Atholl Anderson, from the Australian National University – showeda rate of dispersal "unprecedented in oceanic prehistory", DrWilmshurst said. It also showed human impact on the islands – through fire,introduced predators and hunting – was faster than earlier believed.

"Whereas species declines were thought to have occurred over athousand years or more, it now appears that in most cases several hundred yearswas all it took."

Published in the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences in the United States,the findings came from analysis of 1400 radiocarbon dates from 47 islands –more than 10 times the number of radiocarbon dates of previous studies.

They show Polynesians migrated from Samoa to the Society Islands aboutAD1050, four centuries later than had been thought.

About two centuries later, they colonised other islands, including New Zealand,in one major "pulse". Dr Anderson said possible reasons for leavingthe islands were rapid population growth, technical innovation in sailingboats, climate change and environmental disaster.

Existing models of human colonisation, ecological change and historicallinguistics for the region now required substantial revision, he said.

The timing of the colonisation of the South Pacific had previously beenpoorly understood, with no definite timeline for colonisation in most islandgroups, excluding New Zealand.

Auckland University of Technology history professor Paul Moon said thefindings could have implications for the Waitangi Tribunal because claims,using oral history, had Maori colonisation out by hundreds of years.

"If Maori reached New Zealand waters just 300 years before thefirst Europeans, some people might also start to reconsider the idea of Maoribeing indigenous. It could be interpreted as a different type of `indigenous'from the sort that applies to peoples who inhabited countries exclusively forthousands of years."

Professor Anderson dismissed Dr Moon's claim as"exaggerated", saying the most widely regarded figure for Maorisettlement had already been about 1250.

"Dr Moon's argument that occupation of only hundreds of yearscould disqualify Maori from claiming indigeneity is illogical, since they werethe first people here."

Richard Walter, an Otago University expert in the archaeology of NewZealand colonisation, backed the new findings and also dismissed Dr Moon'ssuggestions.