Settling the Pacific
It’s an amazing story. How did the settlers cover the vast distances, carry enough food and water, establish food plants in their new lands, and grow to be (in many cases) flourishing communities? I hadn’t intended this to be the chief interest of the posts on returning to Hawaii. But I’m not surprised that it is. Talk about globalization ca 300 BC-300 AD.
And I just wish that when I was in Hawaii, surrounded by people who thought about such things, I’d paid it more attention. But there you are. I was swamped with so many, many interesting things going on in the food of the islands.
But anyway in the spirit of opening this up to anyone interested, Polynesian archaeology has been a hot research topic in the last two or three decades, offering to shed a very different light on human prehistory from the standard Eurasian-based story. Here are a few links.
For the Pacific Express (the dramatic expansion across the Pacific), run through the many articles by Peter Bellwood of the Australian National University to find what interests you (actually this link is to his more recent work but you should be able to get back through the references).
For Hawaiian archeology, go to Patrick Kirch of the University of California at Berkeley.
And for foods of the Pacific Islands, if you’re lucky enough to be close to a big research library that might have it, try Nancy Pollock, These Roots Remain.
For the voyage of the Hokulea which recreated the voyage from Micronesia to the Hawaiian islands, a highly emotionally charged event for native Hawaiians, here’s where to go. It has some very practical remarks on provisions. Sad to say, nothing on how you fed yourself once you’d landed.
Interesting stuff. The invention of the outrigger canoe seems to have been the key to colonizing the pacific islands. That is strikingly similar to how the PIE colonized central asia, India and europe with the invention of the horse-drawn chariots with spoked wheels.
Yes it is interesting. These huge early migrations I find fascinating. I’ve been working through a book by David Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (Princeton, 2007). Do you know it? It’s a bit wandering but I’m learning a huge amount about the historiography of linguistics and archeology, which apparently haven’t overlapped as much as they might. I hope to post on it soon.