By the end of the Ice Age some 15¸000 years ago, Homo sapiens had settled in most areas of the Old and New Worlds. Only two areas remained un – colonized by human beings. One was Antarctica, not even visited until the eighteen century C.E., and the other remote islands of Melanesia and Polynesia in the Pacific. In the Diaspora, we saw how late- Ice Age foragers voyaged across open straits to colonize Sahul and the Solomon Islands. Small groups of them had settled on the islands close to New Guinea, in the Bismarck Archipelago of the southwestern Pacific¸ by at least 32¸000 years ago. Here colonization paused for many thousands of years. The successful settlements of islands even further offshore depended on the development of large offshore sailing craft and the ability to navigate far out of sight of land. It also hinged on the successful cultivation of root crops like taro and yam¸ and also on small portable animals like chickens and pigs that could be penned and transported in canoes. These conditions were met by 2000 B..C.E.
The first settlement of offshore Melanesia and Polynesia was closely connected to the cultivation of yam and taro¸ which enabled people to live on islands far from the mainland land masses too isolated for animals or plants to migrate to. The maritime expansion to the more distant Melanesian islands took place after 2000 B.C.E. and covered 3100 miles (5000 kilometers) of island chains and open ocean during a period of six centuries. The voyages took place in ocean–going double–hulled canoes capable of carrying heavy loads. They are associated with so called Lapita culture, named after a site in New Caledonia Island in the southwestern Pacific. The Lapita people originated in the Bismarck Archipelago region of western Melanesia some millennia earlier. Their canoes carried obsidian¸ foodstuffs¸ and other commodities from island to island over long distances. Lapita trade networks were part of a chain of such contacts that extended from Malaysia in the east to coastal New Guinea and offshore.
The rapid expansion to more remote islands occurred among people who lived in an island environment where short inter–island passages were an integral part of daily life. However¸ the journeys to off – lying islands like Fiji and Tonga involved much longer passages, some as many as about 600 miles (1000 kilometers). Here, one–way journeys may have been rare and trade was at best sporadic. Navigation out of sight of land required expert skills. Canoe navigators became a respected and close–knit group, who passed their knowledge down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Young apprentices acquired their skills over many years of sailing under expert supervision. They learned the angles of rising and setting stars¸ the trends of ocean swells, the telltale and often inconspicuous phenomena that indicate the general directions and distance of islands.
From Melanesia¸ canoes voyaged from island to island through western Polynesia¸ taking the plants and domesticated animals of their homelands with them. Melanesians voyaged to Micronesia and Polynesia, small groups began to settle the more remote islands. The Marquesas were colonized by 200 B.C.E. and the Society Islands and Tahiti by 600 C.E. The first canoes arrived in Hawaii some 1350 years ago and on Easter Island by 500 C.E. New Zealand, the largest and among the most remote of all Pacific Islands, has a temperate climate, not the tropical warmth of Polynesia. Despite the ecological difference, New Zealand was first settled by Polynesia ancestors of the Maori people¸ who voyaged southward perhaps as early as 1000 C. E. New Zealand temperate North Island made the cultivation of yams and other tropical crops difficult, so the early settlers relied heavily on hunting¸ fishing¸ and foraging.
Technologically¸ Micronesia and Polynesia had no metals and relied on stone axes and an elaborate array of bone and shellfish hooks. The crops people planted varied from island to island, but breadfruit¸ taro¸ coconut¸ yams¸ and bananas were the staples. By combining fish with simple agriculture¸ that were the basis of powerful chiefdoms. In Polynesia¸ as elsewhere in the world¸ agriculture¸ surpluses generated on the larger islands were used as a form of wealth. This wealth¸ in turn¸ concentrated political power in the hands of a relatively few people. When European explorers visited Tahiti in the mid–eighteen century¸ they chanced on a center of a vigorous eastern Polynesia society. The islands were ruled by a powerful hierarchy of warlike chiefs and nobles¸ descendants of the canoe crews who had first settled the archipelago. The chiefs acquired prestige by controlling and redistributing wealth and food supplies just as they did in Europe¸ North America¸ and elsewhere in the prehistoric world. Their formidable religious and social powers led¸ inevitably¸ to intense competition¸ to warfare ¸ and to ever more ambitious agriculture projects.
Tahitian society was riddled with factionalism and vicious infighting¸ as were the chiefdoms that developed far to the north¸ in the Hawaiian Islands¸ at about the same time. Polynesian chiefdoms were highly volatile and politically unstable. This volatility is well documented in New Zealand, where the introduction of the sweet potato in about 1400 C.E. made a dramatic difference to local life. The population of North Island grew rapidly as agriculture surpluses created new wealth and greater social complexity. Soon¸ overcrowding on the best sweet potato lands led to intense competition between neighboring chieftains. When Europeans arrived in 1769¸ they found the Maori people living in fortified villages and engaged in constant warfare. Their military campaigns on land and sea were short and violent¸ often launched from elaborately carved war canoes up to 80 feet (24.3 meters) in length. By this time¸ warfare was a key element in Maori society, to the extent that it was institutionalized and an important factor in maintaining cohesion and leadership.
The chiefdoms of Polynesia were fully as elaborate and hierarchical as those elsewhere in the ancient world. They were based on kin ties and on communal ownership of land. These were societies in which leadership¸ even when inherited¸ depended heavily on the personal qualities of leaders and on their ability to retain the loyalty of their followers. Their chieftains were not despotic monarchs¸ exercising supreme political¸ religious and economic authority¸ but people who ruled because of their inborn abilities and because of their close toes to their people. As we shall see in the case of North America some of these pre–state societies achieved remarkable levels of elaboration¸ but were very different from the tightly controlled¸ society stratified states of Western Asia¸ China or the Americans.
The transformation in Maori society that resulted from the introduction of the sweet potato can be mirrored by the history of maize in North America. Both in the Southwest and in the South and Southeast¸ the arrival of corn led to major changes in indigenous societies ; but these changes varied greatly from one region to the next. In each area, highly variable ecological factors and social realities led to the development of complex farming societies.
