Situated east of Australia in the southwestern Pacifi c, New Zealand consists of two large islands, North Island and South Island, and many small ones that together comprise about 104,000 square miles—the size of Colorado. Extending almost 1,000 miles north to south, New Zealand possesses vast environmental variation: from subtropical to temperate forests, from volcanic peaks to the gla-cier-studded Southern Alps. There are also grasslands, swamps, and a coastline of breathtaking length. Distinctive fl ora and fauna evolved on this long-isolated landmass, including about ten species of moas. These fl ightless birds, some reaching 3 m tall and weighing 250 kg (Fig. 1 ), were the main forest herbivores because, with the exception of bats, New Zealand before European colonization lacked terrestrial mammals. Not surprisingly, New Zealand’s coastline boasts marine resources, including bony fi sh, sharks, whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and shellfi sh and other invertebrates.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, archaeology in New Zealand has undergone a fl orescence, with the major outlines of prehistory well established and tied into the wider prehistory of the Pacifi c (Kirch and Kahn 2007 ). Among the syntheses of New Zealand prehistory are Davidson ( 1984 ) and Furey and Holdaway ( 2004 ); a recent volume focuses on material culture of the Pacifi c (Anderson, Green, and Leach 2007 ). In addition, Morrison, Geraghty, and Crowl ( 1994 ) edited a four- volume work on the indigenous science of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
Anderson ( 1989 ) treats the early occupation, the time when moas were exploited.
There are also myriad site reports and specialist papers and monographs.
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The indigenous occupation of New Zealand, from the earliest colonists to their descendants—the present-day Māori—is one of biological continuity. The fi rst perma-nent colonists were Polynesians, who no doubt followed voyages of exploration.
Similarities in artifacts, burial practices, and languages have long pointed to Eastern Polynesia, most likely the Society Islands (which includes Tahiti), as the homeland. This inference has been supported recently by genetic and chronological evidence. The anal-ysis of mitochondrial DNA from living peoples indicates that the Eastern Polynesians, including the Māori, are genetically homogeneous and differ from the more heteroge-neous Western Polynesians (Penny, Murray-McIntosh, and Harrison 2002 ).
A comprehensive analysis of radiocarbon dates from Eastern Polynesia has determined when the major island groups were fi rst settled (Wilmshurst et al. 2011 ).
The authors properly focused on the 207 dates from short-lived plants and eggshells of terrestrial birds, the kinds of materials that contain no old carbon (cf. Schiffer 1986 ). Their analysis shortened most chronologies, indicating that the Society Islands were settled in the twelfth century, followed in the thirteenth century by the Marquesas, Hawaii, Southern Cooks, and Easter ( Rapa Nui ), and New Zealand.
The best current date range for New Zealand’s colonization is 1230–1280 C.E.
Fig. 1 Richard Owen and a skeleton of the largest moa species (Owen 1879 , Plate XCVII) Exploration and Colonization
(Wilmshurst et al. 2011 :1818), which replicates the fi ndings of an earlier and equally selective analysis of C-14 dates that placed the founding population’s arrival at 1250 C.E. or later (Higham and Hogg 1997 ). This timing coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period (ca. 1250 C.E.), after which long-distance voyaging in the Pacifi c ceased (Nunn et al. 2007 ; but see Anderson and McFadgen 1990 ).
In accounting for genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA, simulation modeling suggests that the founding population, which likely arrived on a fl otilla of double- hull canoes, included 50–100 women (Penny, Murray-McIntosh, and Harrison 2002 ). With such a large group, which probably had at least an equal number of men, we may suppose that the founders brought much, if not all, traditional science to New Zealand. There may have been later immigrants, but that has not been estab-lished. By assuming 30 generations of 20 years each, growing at a modest rate, the simulation reached the estimated 100,000 Māoris present at the beginning of sus-tained European contact, ca. 1800 C.E.
The Society Islands are tropical and more environmentally homogeneous than New Zealand. We may assume that the pioneers, who colonized both North and South islands in a matter of decades, encountered different problems of adaptation depending on where they settled; the variation in subsistence and settlement pat-terns occasioned the creation of much locality-specifi c science. Villages were estab-lished mainly along the coasts, particularly the eastern coasts, which gave ready access to marine resources. Depletion of staple wild resources in part led to adaptive changes, especially after 1500 C.E. (Barber 1996 ). Throughout prehistory there was, in general, a greater reliance on hunting and gathering in the more temperate South Island.
Owing to the poor preservation of plant macrofossils in New Zealand, inferences about when Polynesian domesticated plants were introduced, the degree of depen-dence on particular wild and domesticated plants, and changes in plant use remain to be worked out, potentially through reliance on microfossils such as starch grains, pollen, and phytoliths (Horrocks 2004 ). However, a few well-known patterns are of interest. From the Society Islands the early New Zealanders brought along a full complement of domesticated plants, which included sweet potato, taro, and yam.
The pioneers learned that these crops could be grown, but not everywhere and not as easily as in the tropics, and that recipes for planting and harvesting would have to be modifi ed to fi t the local environment. And they soon discovered that some of the imported tropical plants—banana, breadfruit, coconut, and sugar cane—could not be grown anywhere; as a result, much science was likely lost. Similarly, many of the useful medicinal and ritual plants of the Society Islands were absent or could not be cultivated. Consequently, trial and error led eventually to a new suite of usable plants, categories to label them, observations and empirical generalizations of their habitats and seasonality, and recipes for processing and use.
Of the Eastern Polynesian domesticated and commensal animals—pigs, dogs, chickens, and rats—only rats and dogs, which were eaten, became established in New Zealand (Clark 1997 ), but chickens have been found at some sites (Storey, Ladefoged, and Matisoo-Smith 2008 ). In exploring the inland valleys and lengthy coasts, however, the settlers encountered many new and unfamiliar animals,
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particularly moas and fur seals. Not used to human predation, moas and seals could be captured and killed with relative ease; Anderson ( 1989 :151, 157) suggests that the big birds could have been taken with snares and wooden spears. Detailed inspec-tion of moa bones might furnish evidence on hunting technologies. Regardless of hunting technologies, people learned where and when to fi nd the animals, and thus observations and empirical generalizations were created along with new categories;
and recipes were required for processing new raw materials and assembling the tech-nologies. Although hearths and traditional Polynesian earth ovens would have suf-fi ced for cooking large animals, new butchery recipes may have been needed. And the people created recipes for fashioning animal bones into ornaments and tools.
For butchery, manufacture of bone artifacts, and other activities, people sought sources of chippable stone, and through trial and error learned which materials could be used for which tasks. The chipped-stone industry led to the creation of material categories, observations of source locations, empirical generalizations about the properties of each material, manufacture recipes, and knowledge about the performance characteristics of fi nished tools.
New Zealand prior to human occupation was heavily forested, mainly with var-ied conifers and broadleaf species, including hardwoods, in several major ecozones (McGlone 1989 ). Although most New Zealand trees were new to the colonists, they could initially approach these resources with general knowledge for harvesting and working wood, which in the Society Islands had been used for constructing dwell-ings and canoes, and making portable artifacts. However, in New Zealand the set-tlers still had to learn about the new trees. And so, to their base of botanical knowledge they added tree categories that were coupled to properties and perfor-mance characteristics as well as to each type’s favored habitats, and recipes for harvesting and working wood were modifi ed as necessary. The growing knowledge of New Zealand woods and other plants enabled the construction of serviceable dwellings and helped to initiate a tradition of ornate carvings for which the Māori are justly famed.
Working of wood employed ground stone artifacts, including chisels and polished stone adzes, and so sources of appropriate materials were sought and identifi ed, including basalt, metamorphosed argillite, and nephrite jade. Because the quarries are highly localized but the fi nished products widespread, signifi cant exchange likely took place (Leach 1990 ). After creating suitable recipes, jade and seal ivory were worked into artifacts having important symbolic and emotive functions.
Fishhooks and harpoons made of shell and bone had been employed in Eastern Polynesia, and these technologies were adapted for acquiring bony fi shes, sharks, and mammals. Marine invertebrates were also exploited, including cockles and mussels, perhaps with traditional gathering and processing recipes modifi ed.
The early adaptations enabled the ancestral Māori to survive, although analyses of human remains from Wairau Bar, believed to be one of the founding settlements, suggest that the early years had been nutritionally stressful (Buckley et al. 2010 ).
After this initial period, which apparently lasted much less than a generation, the people thrived. However, a heavy reliance on sea mammals and moas was not a sustainable adaptation for a rapidly growing population, especially in a degrading
Exploration and Colonization
environment (Nagaoka 2001 ). According to McGlone ( 1989 :115), “Polynesian set-tlement of New Zealand … led directly to the extinction or reduction of much of the vertebrate fauna, destruction of half of the lowland and montane forests, and wide-spread soil erosion.” Indeed, a growing human population rapidly decimated the fur seals and drove the moas to extinction. Although the date of the moas’ demise remains uncertain, there is general agreement that they were gone within 100–200 years of initial colonization (Holdaway and Jacomb 2000 ; Nagaoka 2005 ). As fur seals and moas became scarce, foraging effi ciency declined, leading to more inten-sive processing of moa carcasses and an increasing reliance on second- tier resources (Nagaoka 2001 , 2005 ). And bracken fern root, whose growth was encouraged by fi re, became a staple in some regions (Barber 1996 ).
Eventually, people in North Island came to depend more on the cultivation of sweet potato ( kumara ). As Walter, Smith, and Jacomb ( 2006 :274) remarked, “New Zealand is an unusual case involving a society moving from an agricultural to a pre-dominantly hunting and gathering base and then, following large-scale faunal deple-tions, back towards agriculture.” Even so, many local groups on South Island continued to follow a largely foraging lifeway focused on smaller game such as
“fi sh, small birds and shellfi sh” (Anderson and Smith 1996 :364). Endemic warfare ensued on North Island and in the north of South Island (Davidson 1984 ), which led to the construction of pā , the seemingly ubiquitous fortifi ed hilltop villages (Davidson 1984 ). Needless to say, the changing adaptations of ancestral Māori required much new science, whose elucidation is beyond the scope of this case study.
The above paragraphs represent a plausible sketch of the kinds of new science that the ancestral Māori likely created as they managed to adapt to unfamiliar envi-ronments. Someone closely acquainted with the primary sources of Polynesian archaeology and ethnology would be able to fashion a more complete and nuanced account. Nonetheless, this highly generalized case study indicates the vast research potential that colonization processes offer to the prehistorian interested in the archaeology of science. In addition to New Zealand, promising candidates for such studies are other islands fi rst settled in relatively recent times in the Pacifi c, Indian Ocean (e.g., Madagascar), and the Caribbean. Once we have in hand a sprinkling of geographically diverse case studies, it should be possible to do comparative analy-ses that tease out patterns in the creation of science during colonization procesanaly-ses.