No abstract

This paper reintroduces the concept of mass migration into debates concerning the timing and nature of New Zealand's settlement by Polynesians. Upward revisions of New Zealand's chronology show that the appearance of humans on the landscape occurred extremely rapidly, and that within decades settlements had been established across the full range of climatic zones. We show that the rapid appearance of a strong archaeological signature in the early 14th century AD is the result of a mass migration event, not the consequence of gradual demographic growth out of a currently unidentified earlier phase of settlement. Mass migration is not only consistent with the archaeological record but is supported by recent findings in molecular biology and genetics. It also opens the door to a new phase of engagement between archaeological method and indigenous Maori and Polynesian oral history and tradition.

the last twenty years has seen an apparent consensus that the immediate origins of Polynesian language, culture and biology lie solely with the lapita peoples and cultures that settled Samoa and tonga by 2700 years ago. We suggest that there is increasing evidence that does not sit well with this generally accepted view of Polynesian origins and thus we put forward an alternative model for consideration. Building on Green's suggestion of over 20 years ago, we propose that some of the ideas in his triple-I model (Green 1991a) might also be usefully applied to conceptualizing the processes involved in Polynesian origins. Specifically, we suggest that in addition to lapita origins, there were significant later elements introduced to Polynesia that were fundamental to the development of Polynesian culture and biology prior to the settlement of East Polynesia. Current data suggest that some of these elements are shared with Micronesia and may be ultimately derived from post-lapita population movements, perhaps from Island Southeast Asia through the low islands of the Carolines, Kiribati and tuvalu to West Polynesia.