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Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Why did Captain Cook get there before the Polynesians who were natural seafarer and relatively local? Was it another case of the tortoise over taken the rabbit? That was an excuse or argument used by the Boers to claim they were the natual inhabitants of South Africa because no one else was iiving there
One question that's nagged me for years is why nobody else was living in Australia. It's a hop skip & a jump from Indonesia. It's not like you could miss the land mass if you just sailed in the general direction. All the people surrounding it were seafarers. The "nesians" (indo, micro, mela, & poly) discovered every island in the Pacific. Every single one. The Polynesians were/are the greatest sailors in the history of the planet. They discovered every island in the Pacific, including Hawaii & Easter Island, the 2 most remote places on the face of the earth. Why no settlements in Australia? With all that coastline, there has to be natural sheltered harbors with fresh water & game. One would think that somebody would have checked it out in the thousands & thousands of years that they were sailing all around it. Just a curiosity.
Was it that the aborigines were not seafarers who traded or bumped into them? Any reason why the Maori never settled there?Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 2
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 20th December 2010
There is the possibility that some Polynesians did make it to Australia, but as the Aborigines were there already perhaps they either didn't want to try and settle an already-settled land (NZ and many of the Pacific islands were settled first by Polynesians) or they were greeted by aggression and were beaten back or decided it simply wasn't worth it.
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Message 3
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 20th December 2010
They lost the first cricket match, and went home in a huff !
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Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Actually the comment about the Boers might be an indication. Europeans going into the interior of Africa and finding apparent wilderness often assumed that it was just a free gift from Heaven.. The White Highlands of Kenya being an obvious example. In such circumstances the Europeans stake their claim and settle themselves down permanently. To some extent this was only possible because of the survival kits that they brought with them in terms of plants and animals that they could settle in European-type mixed farming.
In fact according to South African black oral history the Boers arrived as a "new tribe" with few cattle, or cattle not suited to the environment. So the local tribes did what Africans did being "good neighbourly", they gave them some of the local cattle as breeding stock.. The Boers also took these as a gift, European style, and did not observe the African protocol, which was to make a return gift of the first crop of calves. So the Africans went to claim what was rightfully theirs by widespread African custom, and the Boers hunted them down and shot them as cattle rustlers, using that other crucial thing that made it possible for Europeans to venture into "wild parts"- the big gun.
Now the Australian Aborogines seem to have survived as hunter gatherers with only the Australian wild dog as a domesticated animal, and one has to wonder how much of Australia was suitable for the Polynesian lifestyle that seems to have been very largely based upon growing, harvesting, and fishing. In places like Tahiti the growing conditions were incredibly favourable, for there were no seasons. It was possible to plant food crops whenever the stocks suggested that it was time, and the weather was incredibly favourable and sure. The seas around abounded with fish and other marine sources of food, and, of course, the geography of the mountainous islands lost in vast oceans made defence something that could be managed by quite small populations inhabiting regions even of larger islands liker those of New Zealand.
Caro, however, has posted previously on the reputed cannibalism of the Maori, and the challenge of feeding the population in those more southern and temperate climes did require the kind of organisational, political and military developments that were less important in Polynesia, or in Australia.
Of course Botany Bay famously abounded with wildlife. But it was not long after the first settlement was made at Botany Bay that Aborigines from the "Outback" came and settled nearby as what appeared to the settlers as in effect communities of scavengers who rejoiced in the sudden new supply of things that they had never known. Alcohol helped to depress the European view of these original Australians.
But the Botany Bay Convict Settlement was by its very nature a military one designed to be an open prison and capable dealing with any attack that might have wiped it out, as happened to some of the early European attempts to settle in North America.
A book that I have about those early Australian settlements is called "Beyond the Black Stump", and my feeling is that vastness of "The Outback" is a part of the fundamental reality of that continent. The Pacific Ocean was even vaster, but the Polynesians knew how to treat it as a friend and ally. The Outback was another matter; and given the recent crises suffered by modern Australian farmers one has to wonder whether the "survival kit" that made it possible for so much of the land to be vaguely settled, is up to the challenge of the twenty-first century.. It seems that many farms that have been handed down through several generations will now become abandonned. .
Rather like the Communist dream of the Soviet Union people were prepared to struggle with a "New Frontier" for several generations, in the hope that their descendents would reap the rewards that they would never realise themselves. The modern world is rushing to urbanise. But there are still people in Polynesia who think that they are living in as close to paradise as you get on Earth.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 5
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Just a quick point of order - Botany Bay wasn't the site of the first European settlement in Australia. It was intended to be, but Arthur Phillip found it inadequate for their purposes (no reliable source of fresh water, and no secure anchorage. Phillip also thought the soil poor for agriculture there) so he sailed north and soon found the opening to the fantastic natural harbour that is now called Port Jackson (or Sydney Harbour).
The original settlement was at Sydney Cove, where Circular Quay is today, just a stone's throw from the Opera House on one side and the Harbour Bridge on the other side of the bay.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Stoggler
Thanks for that..
I wonder what soil quality is like generally in Australia.. I seem to recall from schoolboy geography back in the Fifties that basically farming in the Outback was heavily dependent upon bringing both water and chemical fertilisers to the land.. though sheep famously thrive on rough grazing.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 7
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 20th December 2010
I seem to recall Cass from my visit to the National Museum of Australia (in Canberra - one of the best museums I've ever been to) that Australia as a whole has the thinnest average soil of all the inhabited continents, and even in the more fertile parts of the country it is poor when compared to parts of North America and Western Europe.
That said, parts of Australia are very good for particular kinds of agriculture - viticulture (Barossa Valley and Hunter Valley) and market gardening (eg Mildura and along the Murray-Darling river system in general)Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 8
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Well Australia is definitely not a hop skip and a jump from Indonesia, it may seem so on a map but the actual distance is vast and the seas are brutal, even so the Aboriginals of Australia did trade with those of the Indonesian islands and with south east Asia. It is generally believed that it was through this trade that the Dingo was introduced to Australia some 9,000yrs ago.
The Melanesians that inhabit the Torres Straight Islands also found Australia and there are two Torres Straight Islander settlements on the north Australian mainland, Bamaga and Seisia. The islanders are/were a sea faring people who traded with both New Guinea and Australia, they have their own distinct and seperate culture although they are genetically linked to New Guinea as well. But, in the faces of the Torres Straight Islanders today one can see the combination of the three peoples, Aboriginal, New Guinean and Melanesian.
As far as I know the Australian Aboriginal were not sea farers, they didn't have any real need to be as the land provided all they needed, The coastal tribes did fish of course but they didn't go far beyond the shores, not sure about the Aboriginals of TasmaniaLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 9
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Cass, the "outback" is only one part of Australia, the central desert and it's surrounds where it is mainly sheep and the water source is artesian. The vast bulk of crop and cattle farming is done around the coastal fringes and depends on the climate as to what is farmed where.
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Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Genetic research in recent years tends to suggest that the cultural markers defining "Polynesian" are only roughly in correspondence with the distribution of gene types and that overlap between the two is at least equally as common as divergence. What this means when represented on a map is significant to your original question, Elkstone, in that it clearly demonstrates a more diffuse spread of genetic material than what might have been supposed by what we traditionally refer to as "Polynesian" territory and people.
What this means in terms of the historical expansion of peoples in the Pacific is unclear, though it suggests that there is no reason to suppose that Australia and New Zealand may not indeed have been "reached" by such people, though evidence of even temporary settlement is sparse. Recently a more open-minded approach to such speculation has resulted in quite serious archaeological assessment of, for example, drained canals in New Zealand which are almost definitely pre-Maori, as well as genetic examination of Australian aborigines which is also apparently contradicting the assumption that they had the entire Australian landmass to themselves since arriving there and right on up to European settlement.
If however one limits one's definition of "Polynesian" to a people whose common attributes are more cultural than racial, then what emerges from both the genetic and historical research, despite a huge variation in theory ranging from the conservative to the fantastic, is that they represent a society of hitherto unappreciated complexity which effectively controlled the vast area bordered by Melanesia to the west, Hawaii in the north, Central and the western coast of South America to the east, but not much further south than Samoa. Island distribution accounts for some of this, while historical data adduced from myth hints at political, natural and cultural reasons which might, at times, have driven sudden and substantial migrations. The sheer distance to New Zealand and even further to Australia from their cultural centre might well account also for this southern "boundary", but the Maori are a good evidence of the fact that this traditional barrier to expansion was in the gradual process of being breached (in anthropological terms) when the Europeans arrived on the scene, effectively disrupting, and ending, the whole thing.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 11
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 20th December 2010
Iβve wondered about that in the past, too, Elkstone, but Australia is actually a very difficult country to get to. In the north there is Papua New Guinea and it has been inhabited for a very long time, so formed a barrier in the north and the Great Barrier Reef is difficult to navigate through from the east β the way people would have been arriving from. The distance from New Zealand upwards is no so far, but Maori seem to have settled here as farmers and horticulturalists and gave up long-distance travelling. The coasts here are dangerous β still many people killed on boats round the seas each year β so getting in and out of harbours is not that simple. Maori had large waka (canoes) but they did tend to prefer inland waterways to coastal seas.
Some time ago I read The Quest for Origins by KP Howe and wrote a bit about Maori settlement and Polynesian travels. There have been interesting genetic studies of the people. I read that, βThe partition of the Pacific by Europeans into the categories of Micronesia and Melanesia and Polynesia is a dubious construct. When the Austronesians undertook their remarkable journey, there were no such divisions and categories." There has been considerable study on the Lapita pottery of the Polynesian and Melanesian areas which link the civilisations. This pottery has been found from the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea in the west to Samoa in the east. It was first discovered in Tonga in the early years of the 20th century, then dated in 1952 in New Caledonia. "The timing and major routes of migration of first human settlement into Remote Oceania are dramatically revealed in Lapita pottery remnants. The people who made them were the ancestors of those who eventually reached Eastern Polynesia." They appear some 3500 years ago throughout Near Oceania [I presume Near Oceania means the western part]." Then in Remote Oceania about 3200 years ago. As well as the pots there is evidence in the forms of plant-growing, animal-domesticating, village-swelling, maritime-travelling and trading. Also evidence of biological and linguistic kinds.
Pot making continued in Melanesia but stopped in Samoa and Tonga about 2000 years ago and never started again. The author also talks of other non-tangible evidence, like cosmologies, social concepts, notions of tapu and mana, and land tenure practices as helping to link west and east.
The women of Polynesia go back to the Taiwan area, but oddly the chromosones of men lead more to eastern Indonesia (Wallacea). "The genetic origins of the Austronesian peoples who eventually settled Remote Oceania may be geographically more complex and regional widespread rather than having a single or specific homeland in SE Asia...There may be cultural reasons for any differences in male and female migratory patterns.β
Have you read something other than alternative historians about these canals, Nordmann? Anything I have read debunks ideas that there were people here before Maori (apart from romanicizers, seeing Celtic influences etc), assuming you count Moriori and moa-hunters as Maori (which they were).
The NZETC site says, βThese canals are among the great sports of New Zealand archaeology, ranking along with house pits as unsustained interpretations. The 'canals' are natural distributaries, 16 characteristic of the outflow plains of major rivers. As they accumulate over time, with the changing course of the river and river gravels covering over parts of the earlier ones, their natural origin may have been difficult to detect. They would, of course, have been used for eeling and fowling, but their origin is natural.β I canβt find any reliable site or writing that suggests otherwise. I have Barry Brailsford book The Song of Waitaha which postulates that there was a civilisation here 2000 years before Polynesians. Michael King, well-respected New Zealand historian has said, βThere was not a skerrick of evidence β linguistic, artifactual, genetic; no datable carbon or pollen remains, nothing β that the story had any basis in fact.β
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 12
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Monday, 20th December 2010
I also read that the people of madasgar, or the original inhabitants were polynesians and not african. The people there are mixed with africans and some look black, but the indigenous language and culture is strongly polynesian. now the distance from madagsgar 250 miles from africa to Easter island is mind boggling but they made it. So maybe they settled in those far off isolated islands because the lands were suited to their lifestyle, whereas Australia is a bit barren and not as lucious with various plant life as in the other islands?
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Message 13
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
islanddawn
I well recall our schoolboy maps with the "inhabitable" coastal littoral, by which we mean a place where people can settle permanently.. But the point that I was making was that such a huge and hostile interior might well have put off those (a) who had a choice as to whether to settle there or not, and (b) did not have the military potential and backing to feel able to combat whatever dangers came out of it..
Re (a) Polynesians do not seem to have settled in places where it was necessary to first tame the wilderness.
and (b) We almost inevitably look at things through our cultural experience, hence the word "settle" in the title of the thread..In the case of the British experience of settling on the coastal littoral of continents- both North America and Australia- the frontier spirit, as I have suggested, was given backbone by the evident superiority of European military capability (and therefore the God that backed it) over anything likely to come from the vast unknown, and that capability was both in the guns and gunpowder that could be used by individuals and groups, and from the protecting outreach of the British Crown and the Royal Navy. This military capability was such in both cases that the settlers engaged in in episodes of genocide against the Amerindians and Aborigines not fearing either "raising the Devil" from the inner wilderness, nor the "wrath of God".
Regarding soil I wonder whether there is not something of a North South divide, related to the greater land mass in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern. The most fertile agricultural land seems to be the great stretches of alluvial soil which have been built up by the action of the great drainage catchment areas by which the rain that falls on land, while nourishing the vegetation that helps to produce soil, also carries that soil away and piles it up. In this respect the great Ice Age ice caps, in melting, did important work in redistributing soil and creating both hills and plains. And this too has been related to the great fold mountains that serve as the birth place of great rivers that flow all year round, and maintain a residual cap of ice that makes that possible. Australia has its Snowy Mountains, but through vast areas of the Outback it seems that "the wind rules": and as an Aussie commentator pointed out during the recent Test Match the apparently beautiful beach becomes impossible during the afternoon when "The Doctor" blows, since the human body does not enjoy being sculpted by sand-blast.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 14
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
I also read that the people of madasgar, or the original inhabitants were polynesians and not african. The people there are mixed with africans and some look black, but the indigenous language and culture is strongly polynesian. now the distance from madagsgar 250 miles from africa to Easter island is mind boggling but they made it.Β
Saying the people of Madagascar are of Polynesian origin and their language is Polynesian is a little strong. Malagasy is a member of the Austronesian group of languages, just as the Polynesian ones are. But so too are a number of other languages in south-east Asia, such as Indonesian/Malay, Javanese and Tagalog. Malagasy is part of the same language group as all of those languages (along with the Polynesian languages) but it is erroneous to call Malagasy strongly Polynesian.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 15
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
Even more outlandish theories are out there, Stoggler - that the Polynesians originated in Morocco, for example.
Caro - that was my point regarding New Zealand's pre-Maori inhabitation. A few years ago the set of criteria by which such speculation was deemed serious was quite stringently tied to archaeological procedure. In recent years this has been extended to include other disciplines and lines of reasoning, and while it has incontrovertibly lent unmerited weight to some rather fatuous theory, it has also been instrumental in some considerable advances in migratory theory and modelling in the South Pacific. Archaeologists might grumble, and I am inclined to grumble with them, but there is no denying the debate includes many more optional lines of inquiry than before, and some are yielding results in terms of genetic corroboration.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 16
Posted by mismatched (U14242423) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
I believe that the reason that the original inhabitants of Madagascar were of either Malay or Polynesian origin is because of ocean currents and winds.
There are strong, difficult to navigate ocean currents between the African continent and the island of Madagascar, I have also been told that the prevailing winds make it easier to sail to and from South East Asia.
Does anyone know if this is true?
Nevertheless, the Polynesians did sail prodigose distancesLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 17
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
" So maybe they settled in those far off isolated islands because the lands were suited to their lifestyle, whereas Australia is a bit barren and not as lucious with various plant life as in the other islands?"
Only the coasts of Western Australian could be described as barren and as we are discussing the settling of the Pacific islands it would not apply. The northern and eastern coasts are wooded with abundant plant and animal life, particularly the coasts of the Northern Territory and Queensland. They both have a tropical and sub tropical climate, abundant rainforests etc and are not all that different from what is found on the islands.
Imo Caro raised an excellent point in mentioning the Great Barrier Reef as a deterrent. As it's name implies it is one enormous barrier to and from the Pacific that runs almost the length of Queensland, 2,600kms or 1,600ms long.
Because of the trade that existed between indigenous Australians and S/E Asia, Indonesia and the Torres Straight Islands we know that others knew there was a landmass that we now call Australia and that it was inhabited. But why it was not also heavily settled by the "nesians" is anyone's guess, perhaps there were, at times, attempted settlement and they were driven off or killed by Aboriginals? Without written records we'll never know for sure.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 18
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
" But the point that I was making was that such a huge and hostile interior might well have put off those (a) who had a choice as to whether to settle there or not, and (b) did not have the military potential and backing to feel able to combat whatever dangers came out of it.. "
The interior is over a thousand miles and a mountain range from the coastline Cass, any settlers from the Pacific wouldn't know it was there for generations. As happened when European settlement began in Australia.
This map shows exactly how far inland the desert and barren bits are
"but through vast areas of the Outback it seems that "the wind rules": and as an Aussie commentator pointed out during the recent Test Match the apparently beautiful beach becomes impossible during the afternoon when "The Doctor" blows, since the human body does not enjoy being sculpted by sand-blast."
But that is Western Australia situated in the Indian Ocean, in another time zone, another climate and on the other side of a 7,617,930 sq km continental land mass. It doesn't and can't supply an answer to the question of settlement on the eastern coast via the Pacific Ocean. Akin to comparing night and day.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 19
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
islandawn
While your remarks are quite apposite for our world that is so circumscribed by our dependence upon our technology and the limitations especially of our sight, I would suggest that the evidence of the Polynesians past achievements, and, in fact , experience of the very different mindset of people with less "advanced" technology during the last couple of centuries, I would indicate that "primitive" peoples were much more capable of living with the comparative immensity of space and time than we are.
There is that phrase "as far as the eye can see", that implies, "all that need concern us". During the scientific revolution we learned to enhance the capacity of our vision to good effect by the telescope and the microscope- merely increasing our dependence upon what can be made apparent, rather than sensed.
But old fishermen in Britain talk about the loss of the ability to sense and know the sea that the ancestors had: and people who live in vastness that extends well beyond the horizon seem to share with animals the ability to project their understanding well beyond the reach of our conscious sensory perception.
As I have remarked on other threads the reality of vastness of Africa is something that immediately seems to hit visiting African-Americans who travel there with their "western" view of African history.
It is obvious when we look at the unfamiliar with seraching eyes, that there is more beyond the horizon: and any territory that is likely to support wandering and nomadic human life is particularly to be feared.
The wanderers are likely to find the settlers, and wanderers from at least the time of Genesis, though they may wander in small survival groups, like the tribes of Israel, or the Scottish Highland clans, or in fact the normal groups of Aborigines, frequently have periodic gatherings- often annual ones, at which important regular business is conducted, and plans for more collective action taken. We know that this happened in Aboriginal society.
The great Hordes of the Steppes of Asia, including the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan, showed just what such a coming together could achieve, as did the frequent checks that Scottish arms inflicted on the English.. The answer is either to develop a fortress mentality and invest heavily in what we would call the State and its infrastructure, or just go somewhere where these problems are less likely to arise.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 20
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
Er Cass, perhaps you should explain what my attempted explanation on the geography of Australia (and it's immenseness) and why your theory of desert and sand blasts in the face on anyone's arrival doesn't and can't apply to people arriving on the north or east coast has to do with the modern world's dependence on technology and it's limitations.
Have you ever been to Africa Cass? Or Australia? Have you ever experienced the vastness of "space and time" of either continent? For someone who (as far as I can tell) has never left Europe it is interesting that you you feel you can lecture someone who grew up with and understands that feeling of vastness and timelessness in Australia well.
Or are you now suggesting that the Polynesians paddled around all of the 34,000km coastline from the Pacific to the Indian Oceans, in treacherous and brutal seas? Which is all possible of course, but then according to your theory they would have experienced the "Freemantle Doctor" on arrival, turned around and ran home all the way back to the Pacific again? Sorry Cass, but knowing Australia as I do you are not making too much sense.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
islanddawn
I had no idea that the north and east coast can be counted as the whole of the Australia referred to in the OP.."Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?" to my mind means the whole continent.
And you have consistently missed the point about my wind comment, which followed Stoggler's observation about the soil, and was directed largely at the role of various forces of erosion and deposition in the creation of a good soil base. Wind normally blows sand, and soil only when exhaustion has reduced the soil to dust-bowl conditions.
But you are correct in seeing that my understanding of vastness is not based upon wide travelling. Nevertheless I do not have to travel many kilometres from our house in Burgundy to see the vastness of the French countryside that made ancient Burgundians feel obliged to build great hill-top forts in that region. Our house is only 400 metres altitude but walking up another 100 metres opens up a view over rows and rows of hills to the horizon, especially to the West and the setting sun. The volume of Burgundian Folk Tales that I summarised from the French a few years ago shows the impact of living in these wide open "crossroad" spaces, which are quite evidently connected to other wide open spaces that make for a potentially disastrous environment.
Of course the news both there and here does tend to emphasise "the bad" and tragic, but such reoprts suggest that parts of Australia and Africa have not had their troubles to seek in recent decades when people are trying to make a living from the land... But the recent tragedy at Christmas island points to the fact that historically Australians have been more worried about "the hordes" from across the sea than from their interior..
What is perhaps more pertinent to this debate is your Greek experience.. A.R. Glover's "Ancient World" makes the contrary point about the envirnoment that produced Ancient Greece. He saw there a geography of small islands and a mainland divided up into "human size" chunks best summed up perhaps by the great Marathon Run. In this he probably saw some similarity with the human scale of England's Green and Pleasant land, and a similar spirit of sailing and adventure. Perhaps one might study whether the Greek colonists sought similar environments when they "spread their wings" around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 22
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
While your remarks are quite apposite for our world that is so circumscribed by our dependence upon our technology and the limitations especially of our sight, I would suggest that the evidence of the Polynesians past achievements, and, in fact , experience of the very different mindset of people with less "advanced" technology during the last couple of centuries, I would indicate that "primitive" peoples were much more capable of living with the comparative immensity of space and time than we are.Β
Personally I'm more convinced by your comment about the scale of local landscape than anything to do with technology. The English, for instance, travelled further afield than ever before when the technology of ship building increased.
and wanderers from at least the time of Genesis, though they may wander in small survival groups, like...the Scottish Highland clans Β
This is completely new to me. All the evidence I've ever seen was that Highlanders were settled farming communities. Some individuals drove cattle up to higher pastures in summer, but that deosn't make them any more nomadic than the Swiss. Are recommendations for sources I can read up about this?
showed just what such a coming together could achieve, as did the frequent checks that Scottish arms inflicted on the EnglishΒ
The frequent checks on English arms were inflicted mainly by lowland Scots, not highlanders. Even during the C16th reiving period when borderers largely abandoned arable farming they still mostly lived a static lifestyle.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 23
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st December 2010
cloudyj
Well each to his or her own understanding...
Interestingly there is a strong traditional belief in the "Second Sight" powers of the Scottish Highlanders, and Lady Antonia Fraser's biography of Queen Victoria debates whether this had something to do with the very special connection between the Queen and Gillie John Brown-- through him she could "go beyond the veil" and keep in touch with her beloved Albert.
There is also a difference between using the ability to move around and being truly nomadic.. As I understand it the situation of the MacDonalds in the "Great Glen" at Glencoe was not untypical of many clan lifestyles.. The great wealth of the clans was in their herds and so they moved around their territory, as all herders do/did, to make the best use of the grazing in order to prevent overgrazing, but- very much like the family of the Biblical Joseph- they also had lands that were used to grow cereal crops, but exactly which lands were used depended upon which part of their "territory" they were based in that year.
[My most detailed information about the Highlanders comes from Ian Grimble "Clans and Chiefs"]
This could be a very hit and miss affair, Ian Grimble questions whether one clan really was ruined in the 1770's because of a disastrous harvest. He points out that the harvest was particularly good that year.. He had obviously not studied Economics.. A bumper harvest was disastrous. In part it was grown as a cash crop, and when everybody had plenty it was worthless. That is what can happen when you just leave things to nature-- and yet hope to make money.
The battle of Culloden resulted in a deliberate policy- not dissimilar to the anti-gypsy policy of the Nazis in Germany- to suppress the traditional Highland way of life and culture. The Heads of the Clans became landowners, many of them now becoming part of the aristocratic circle in London, and needing their "property" to produce incomes that would support their new life-style. They took to the English fashion of permanent settlement as a way of "improving" their land-assets. They encouraged the ordinary Highlanders to become crofters- not unlike the crofters of the islands.
Some landowners, like the builder of "Hopetown" eventually moved all their tenants to the coast and put their land to sheep grazing, hoping that the people would develop industry, trade and fishing as the land proved resistant to the kind of improvement that would make it suitable for arable farming. But urban living seemed to be the "way ahead".
Meanwhile, as Highland culture was being destroyed the young Walter Scott toured the Highlands recording the folk tales, many of which he later wrote up in his novels. It was never my scene but I understood that Robert the Bruce and Rob Roy at least were from that Highland background. They are usually shown kilted which no Lowlander of that period would have warn: in fact the Lowlanders were scandalised when a King of Scotland appeared in Edinburgh in c1827 wearing the kilt associated with the despised Highland culture.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
Actually the wider "Scottish" experience would suggest two elements that might support my suggestion that the Polynesian non-settlement might have been based upon intelligent choice..
(a) Having mentioned the islands one of the features of communities like those in the Orkneys seems to have been that for much of the year- the most favourable part for sea-faring- most of the men were off 'at sea' leaving the women and children,plus the old men passed any use on board ship, to fend for themselves. Their isolation made their situation more secure than it might otherwise have been.
(b) As mention has been made of the Highlands/Islands v Lowlands dynamic, the problems of establishing a Scottish state covering both seem to have been very much connected with the fact that the Highlands and Islands were another kind of "Outback" where "the Aborigines" (native population) knew how to survive but outsiders were likely to just find themselves in a fatal "Walkabout". Both the Massacre of Glencoe and the battle of Culloden and its aftermath reflect (at least in part) the way that " Lowlanders" seized on the opportunity to deal decisive blows against the Highlanders with the added strength that they could derive through acting with the support and backing of the British Crown.
Of course, as ID has suggested, perhaps it was not by choice but through the hard experience of having attempted settlements wiped out by the Aborigines that the Polynesians did not achieve permanent settlement in Australia.. We seem to be living in a culture that believes in the "lottery of life" rather than human intelligence and free will-- but I live in hope-- just about.
And linking those women left to fend for themselves for much of the year to the genetic studies that have been made, I was informed by a pupil many years ago that her own physiology bore very obvious traces of the very mixed heredity that came from her Cornish background. Cornish culture too was one in which the men were often away at sea for long periods of time, and often expected to have "a wife in every port". Well, my informant told me, while the men were away the women often welcomed foreign sailors into their homes and beds.
This is interesting in the light of either the French or British first contact with Tahiti, for when the ship made anchorage, they saw a "Queen" come down to the shore with her "court", and then they had a couple "make love" their on the beach- putting their "wares" on view. "Make love. Not war"- may well have often proved a successful strategy. Certainly Captain Cook became worried when his crew were pulling iron nails from the actual fabric of the ship in order to pay for sex.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 25
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
Interestingly there is a strong traditional belief in the "Second Sight" powers of the Scottish Highlanders,Β
Belief maybe, but real second sight? no.
There is also a difference between using the ability to move around and being truly nomadic.. As I understand it the situation of the MacDonalds in the "Great Glen" at Glencoe was not untypical of many clan lifestyles.. The great wealth of the clans was in their herds and so they moved around their territory, as all herders do/did, to make the best use of the grazing in order to prevent overgrazing, but- very much like the family of the Biblical Joseph- they also had lands that were used to grow cereal crops, but exactly which lands were used depended upon which part of their "territory" they were based in that year.Β
I'll pick up a copy of the book you recommend, but the settlement patterns don't suggest growing crops wherever they were that year, they reflect permanent settlements occupied on a permanent basis. And whilst the wealth may have resided in the prestige cattle, the subsistance was almost exclusively in the arable crops.
This could be a very hit and miss affair, Ian Grimble questions whether one clan really was ruined in the 1770's because of a disastrous harvest. He points out that the harvest was particularly good that year.. He had obviously not studied Economics.. A bumper harvest was disastrous. In part it was grown as a cash crop, and when everybody had plenty it was worthless. That is what can happen when you just leave things to nature-- and yet hope to make money.Β
It's very cheap on a famous online bookstore, so I'll probably treat myself.
The battle of Culloden resulted in a deliberate policy- not dissimilar to the anti-gypsy policy of the Nazis in Germany- to suppress the traditional Highland way of life and culture. Β
Without trying to be an apologist for Cumberland, the policy was very, very different to the Nazis determination to exterminate gypsies (not just gypsy culture). There was no locking highlanders away in ghettos from which they were forbidden to leave. There were no laws preventing Highlanders marrying lowlanders (or anyone else). There were no edicts stating that Highlanders were ethnic rubbish which needed purging from the genepool. Nor were there Highlanders rounded up for simply being highlanders with the purpose of exterminating them as an ethnic group.
The immediate aftermath was largely indiscriminate against Jacobite supporting clans, but armies putting down rebellions usually aren't fussy. The highlanders would have felt the assault on their dress and culture, but not on them as an ethnic grouping. Many the real cultural sea-change was that chiefs no longer saw any advantage in maintaining large populations for the purpose of levying armies for private wars. So profitting from the land was all that was left. Pro-government chiefs and landlords starting evicting tenants, but they used no new laws to do so. And the highlander evicted had no fewer rights to object than he had in 1740.
Meanwhile, as Highland culture was being destroyed the young Walter Scott toured the Highlands recording the folk tales, many of which he later wrote up in his novels.Β
Walter Scott saw Highland culture through tarten-tinted glasses and ignored the undoubted hardships and lack of security their way of life offered because he was ideologically wed to a myth of the Scottish past.
It was never my scene but I understood that Robert the Bruce and Rob Roy at least were from that Highland background.Β
Not so much Robert the Bruce who came from mixed Norman-gaelic stock and was raised mainly among the pro-lowland culture which was prevailing among the Scottish aristocracy.
They are usually shown kilted which no Lowlander of that period would have warn: in fact the Lowlanders were scandalised when a King of Scotland appeared in Edinburgh in c1827 wearing the kilt associated with the despised Highland culture.Β
The kilt is a lowland re-imagining of the traditional highland plaid. It would have surprised highlanders as well.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 26
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
cloudyj
Thankyou for your response...
I should in truth point out that I have no cause to particularly recommend Grimble's book.. It was something my sister bought by mistake many years ago and threw in my direction.. There came a time when I thought that it was appropriate to read more about Scotland and it seemed an easy place to start..
Grimble seems to base a great deal of the work on oral tradition, with particularly reference to the ideas fixed by bards and musicians.. Some of these he credits with being in the tradition of Celtic seers who prophesised the future.. As with many forms of prophesy it often takes belief to be prepared to fit revelatory remarks to what actually transpires..
On the other hand a French introduction to Britain I possess written in the mid-seventies points out to the potential French visitor that the Scots generally seem to be the most mentally gifted population in Britain with, for example, a totally disproportionate record of winning the Top of the Form competition. And success in exams and tests owes not a little to having some foresight concerning the kind of questions and topics that are likely to come up... But there is also a great record of invention and innovation.
I have just, however, finished watching "Imagine" featuring Ray Davies, who more or less concluded with that old creative artists thought that his art- in his case his songs- already existed before he composed them. He merely found the way to bring them out from the potential.
But actually your point about the changing policies of the lairds just underlines the whole reason why I mentioned the Scots Highlanders- this facility for gathering together armies from disparate regions, none of which would support the large scale permanent settlement. Nevertheless without going to Grimble, I feel sure that the "punishment expedition" that went to the MacDonalds of Glencoe had to search the Glen to find where they were encamped at that time.
As for the Nazis and the Gypsies, I was not referring to the Final Solution period, which it could be argued was all part of the madness and desperation of war, but the earlier period when the Romanies were forced to give up the travelling life and adopt a settled way of life. I well remember one woman being interviewed who looked back at the loss of a way of life when her people lived as free as a bird, and Gypsy weddings meant a week-long party with singing and dancing.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 27
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
Erm, forgive my asking, but what happened to the Polynesians and Australia...?
Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 28
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
Stoggler
Apologies.. I used the example of the Scottish Highlands as an example of a "desert" (according to Dr. Johnson) that could still assemble a formidable fighting force- adequate to deter or destroy would be Polynesian settlers?
Going back to the genetic pool within the Pacific, President Obama's "mongrel" comment seems to coincide with the "mongrel theory" around the time of his birth that argued that the singular beauty, attractiveness and vitality of the people of Hawaii (where he lived as a child) was associated with the fact that "racial purity" was very rare.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 29
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
I used the example of the Scottish Highlands as an example of a "desert" (according to Dr. Johnson) that could still assemble a formidable fighting force- adequate to deter or destroy would be Polynesian settlers?Β
Aye, the tale tale is still told around the peat fires in lonely sheilings in the misty glens of the day the great war canoe came paddling up the loch and the mighty warriors from beyond the sea leapt ashore, twirling their war clubs. Of how they advanced to the edge of the woods and began a fearsome war dance, howling and crying out and slapping their skin before turning and fleeing. Was it Angus mhorβs mighty caber that stopped them? Or wee Jamie flashing his skean dhu? No, it was Scotlandβs secret weapon, the invincible highland midge.
They did not return until they came to bolster up Scotlandβs regiments and rugby teams.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 30
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
ferval
A mighty deterrent indeed.. In about 1970 we drove up as far as Fort William [not seeing too many of the settlements that cloudyj mentioned], and spent a week camping by a bend in a river just north of FW..
It was a quiet road with on average one car per day driving past. But it was perhaps the only time in our marriage that I appreciated my wife smoking. During the crucial evening "witching hour" there was nothing for it but to shut ourselves in our little Hillman Imp and try to clear the midges that got in with us by using smoke as if we were bee-keepers.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 31
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
" I used the example of the Scottish Highlands as an example of a "desert" (according to Dr. Johnson) that could still assemble a formidable fighting force- adequate to deter or destroy would be Polynesian settlers?"
And still failing to understand that in Australia's case the "desert" is a bloody long way from where Polynesians would be landing and attempting to settle. So far in fact that it wouldn't even figure in the equasion.
As Stoggler has already suggested, can we forget about Highlanders, Gypsies, Nazis, Cossacks, Obama (none of which have anything to do with the Pacific Islanders) and whoever else Cass can manage to dream up and get back to the topic?Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 32
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
Yet another discussion thread "cass-trated".
Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
ID-
The Heavens are even vaster, yet pre-moderns understood that, though the day-time sky (largely just the atmosphere) has its role in our daily lives, it was actually the vaster Heavens that really shape it..I could attach some of the Winter Solstice poems that our druid friend emailed 2 days ago.
But I will leave the thread to the skyworshippers.
Cass
Nordmann
A good one..
I discovered a couple of years ago that there is a surgical team in the local NHS working full-time on the reverse process, constructing artifical penises for women wishing to change sex.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 34
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
There is hope for you yet, then.
Have a good Saturnalia, Cass.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 35
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
Nordmann
Thankyou... Enjoy the season of goodwill.. I need it at the moment to counteract my Cass-andra-side... Storm clouds abound just here.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 36
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
I guess I should consider myself well and truely cass-tigated then?
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Message 37
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
ID
Perhaps that should be "crass-tigated"?
And perhaps it is an appropriate moment to say that do I not seek to annoy or exasperate either you or Nordmann, or derive any pleasure from it..
I think that in this case the topic touched upon aspects of my own personal journey that I was going through when series like David Attenborough's "Zoo Quest in Paradise" were being shown on TV.. I read the book a few years ago, with Attenborough's Darwinist approach continuing a Western tradition of projecting "primitive peoples" back into the Stone Age, and the like. Having been born into a "Make Do and Mend" world, and family, what always struck me was the intelligence and inventiveness with which these people made the most of their potential and that of their environment in lives that were genuinely independent, in contrast with the high level of interdependence within either the Capitalist or the Communist systems that were struggling to rule the Earth.
So my reaction to the OP was to see an underlying assumption that there must have been something that made it impossible for the Polynesians to accomplish what the British accomplished.. Perhaps there was- viz- the possession of a certain amount of wisdom.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 38
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
"there must have been something that made it impossible for the Polynesians to accomplish what the British accomplished.. Perhaps there was- viz- the possession of a certain amount of wisdom."
Someone said here not too long ago that there can be too much analysis sometimes,quite an accurate observation imo. And I'm not sure I understand why you'd think that anyone even need accomplish what the British accomplished, if Polynesians et al were complete in their enviroment/world there would be no point in striving for anything else. Man doesn't usually invent or attempt to achieve that which he doesn't need.
Australian Aboriginals didn't invent a wheel, but why would they if they didn't need one? And yes indeed Cass, these people are the possessors of more wisdom than we can begin to fathom.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 39
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
ID
Without wishing to go too far off topic, since my last post I was also reflecting on the fact that by that time I had been given a popular world history- edited by Weech, and printed on that flimsy post-war paper- which took its lead from the quote from HAL Fisher at its start.
"The fact of progress is written plain and large on the page of history; but progress is not a law of nature. The ground gained by one generation can be lost by the next."
The text then proceeds to explain that the history of Civilization has been a kind of marathon race in which the "torch" has been passed around as different people had the particular aptitudes and talents that could make the next step in progress.. I suppose a Darwninist would say that intelligence makes such "leaps forward" possible.. But then, according to this book, each people "shot their bolt" and exhausted their ability to take Civilization any further forward. Hence people like the Polynesians only got as far as their limitations allowed- in this version.. The lie is given in a very moving scene from "Zoo Quest in Paradise". But enough of that.
Fisher himself said as much about coming to "natural checks" when introducing his volume on the History of Europe entitled "The Liberal Experiment" in 1935.. Looking around he could see the emergence of "strong States" and the disappearance of Liberalism and wrote that only when a nation has lost its moral spine is plaster of Paris a suitable remedy.
But the idea that a Civilization had died between 1914 and 1918, and the idea that a new one was necessary, was essential to the inter-war period. The fact that the world "lost its way" resulted in the collapse into World Chaos between 1929 and 1934- which resulted in the Second World War. Subsequently fighting against barbarism for "Christian Civilization" created a global impetus that endured until the collapse of Communism around the time of the Berlin Wall.
Negativity, however, is not enough, once "the force of Evil" is removed, and around that time it became understood that "History is dead" and the world had come to "The end of History".. As Mr Lamont said, all was short-termism for there was/is no discernible current or tide that Humankind can catch any more,, and we are left with the post-mortem analysis provided by science, and the monetary establishment and IMF that underpins our "status quo".
I have recently finished reading an economic history of Britain written in 1928, that time when people were assessing the "way ahead". As a result of the World Chaos the new "gospel" became some kind of State socialism with a small "s".. But towards the end of a 1950 up-date looking at 1919-1949 for a new edition, the author noted the Old Age Pensions of 1908 and the Widows and Orphans Pensions of 1925, and speculated:
"How long and how far will the young and fit be willing to work for the old and unfit? Perhaps only so long as the young and fit believe that they can do it intermediately by squeezing the erstwhile rich".. Just a few years later he might have realised that actually given State security within a Welfare State funded by "squeezing the rich" the credit-worthiness of the "young and fit", and then the States was such that people began to expect to live on the "Never Never".. But now we must ask how long will the young and fit be willing to work for the global financial system.. This seems to be something of an issue in Greece and the Irish Republic.
To come back to the Polynesians, perhaps they were content to carry on with their own "pursuit of happiness"-- after all we have to remember that Australia was settled essentially as a way to deal with the problems of Great Britain.. things bad begun etc..
Perhaps the answer to the OP lies in Polynesian methods of birth control..
In Tahiti, for example, there was a privileged priestly class who were entitled to have sex with any of the women. But they were not allowed to become an hereditary caste, and therefore could not have any children. So any children born to the women with whom they had sex were strangled at birth.. This sounds a terrible solution, but it was one way of making sure that what the French explorers reported as an "island of love" did not have the birth-rate that would go along with the amount of sexual activity.
The Harvard Peabody expedition to the Kurelu and Wittaia tribes in the Snowy Mountains of New Guinnea discovered that the women controlled the birth-rate, and in fact the men did not understand the relationship between sexual intercourse and pregancy. The women understood whether another child could be catered for and had a special secret place where they carried out their abortions.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 40
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 23rd December 2010
In short (for those who skim my posts-at best) perhaps the Polynesians did not settle Australia because:-
(a) they had no need to dump lots of convicts, produced by an increasingly rich country operating a terrible and punitive legal code;
(B) they had no grounds for fearing a population explosion as encouraged by Malthusianism and the belief in the problem of "surplus population".
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 41
Posted by mismatched (U14242423) on Friday, 24th December 2010
To bring us back to the original question.
Why does there appear to be no evidence of Polynesian settlement in Australia?
The one thing that most people know about the Poynesians is that they were great seamen. They sailed in their outriggers to the Hawian Islands in the North East Pacific and Easter Island in the South East Pacific and all the archipelagos in between. All a far greater distance than Australia.
They must have made return journeys otherwise those islands would not be populated.
So how did they miss Australia which is such a large land mass that it is considered a continent ?Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 42
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 24th December 2010
Getting back to the "missing evidence":
Perhaps someone who has studied the Polynesian past could indicate what would be the tell-tale signs of ancient Polynesian settlement. that has been abandonned.
One of the reasons why Archeology became so obsessed with Egypt was because the pyramids at least were very apparent with only the desert sands to blast them..
Then, during the second half of the Nineteenth Century, people were amazed to discover the remains of the contemporary Mesopotamian Civilizations that had disappeared because (a) the basic building material was brick not stone, and brick just rotted away over the centuries, and (b) the region was subject to tremendous floods that covered places like Ur with layers of alluvial sediment.
There are Polynesian settlements that are threatened by global warming and the raising of the sea-levels, and it seems that the Polynesians habitually settled near the sea.
Perhaps ID will be able to reassure me that Australia is outside of the Pacfic tidal wave belt..
But the Boxing Day Tsunami produced the enlightening tale of the people on a small island in the Indian Ocean who "experts" expected to have been totally wiped out . And, when they landed by helicopter, they found that their settlement was. But all the people had survived.
The wisdom of their ancestors told them that the conflict between sea and land is an ongoing one, and when the sea retreats to the Horizon you must expect it to come surging back.. Then the only thing to do is to quickly go up the mountains until the sea has finished attacking. Then they just go back and build a new settlement with the local materials to hand.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 43
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Friday, 24th December 2010
HOw do we know for sure that the Polynesians and the Aborigines didn't cross the seas and trade with each other? It's possible that the Polynesians did indeed make it to Australia, but didn't see any need to colonise the island continent. Who knows, maybe they thought it was too much of a desert to be of any use!
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Message 44
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 24th December 2010
shivfan
Further to that- The Harvard Peabody expedition c1960 discovered that the Kurelu and Wittaia- though apparently inhabiting their own "lost world" "Under The Mountain Wall" in Papua New Guinnea- did actually have regular trade links for supplies of the one thing from the outside world that they really valued- salt.
Shades of sub-Saharan Africa and the assertion in 1783 re Sierra Leone that the Africans who controlled the commerce with the Europeans expressly forbade the import of salt.. for it would have proved too destabilising for the local economy.
CassLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 45
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 7th January 2011
Hello Elkstone and all,
The reasons that the Polynesians didn't reach Australia are that there are no favourable trade winds in the Tasman sea that would make possible the passage from New Zealand to Australia and that Melanesia that is lying between Polynesia and Australia is inhabited.
The Polynesians were excellent seamen that knew more about the winds than the Europeans did until Columbus' discovery of America. They knew about the trade winds and that these winds would blow from east to west, allowing to sail west. They knew that these trade winds would be blowing in the tropics, but would be absent in the temperate climate. So when they reached New Zealand they knew they couldn't sail farther west because there were no trade winds in the Tasman Sea.
In the tropics, though, the Polynesians could have made use of the trade winds. thus the Polynesians might have been able to reach Australia by crossing the Coral Sea. The strategy of the Polynesians was to leapfrog from one island to the next, colonize the new island and then sail on. Unlike other cultures, though, they were averse of colonizing islands that were already inhabited. Cass might be rightly inferring that this was a strategy to keep their women from seeing non-Polynesian men.
Whatever the reason, Melanesia stood between Australia and Polynesia, thus preventing the Polynesians to leapfrog towards Australia.
Regards,
PoldertijgerLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 46
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Friday, 7th January 2011
It's my understanding - and it may have been mentioned earlier though when I went to check I got diverted by cass-trated and other witticims - that DNA studies show quite a mix of Polynesian and Melanesian genes in the area north of Australia, though. I think the two cultures were not as separate as has been thought. However Papua New Guinea is not a place to take lightly and there may just have been some minor mingling.
New studies on New Zraland settlement have shown that Maori probably did not get here till about 1600 (though Maori oral traditions don't quite support this) so that did not give them all that much time before European settlement. However they did seem to have become settled here - I don't think they travelled south, for instance, to the Auckland Islands. (Though who in their right mind would want to go there?)
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 47
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Saturday, 8th January 2011
Hello Caro,
Thanks for the input.
You write:
β¦DNA studies show quite a mix of Polynesian and Melanesian genes in the area north of Australiaβ¦Β
This can be explained by what you wrote in message 11. Melanesians and Polynesians probably originate from the same ancestor: the Lapita. Later the Melanesians had not much use for crossing the waters, while the Polynesians became the great navigators of the Pacific. The fact that their genes are much alike doesnβt necessarily mean that these two peoples met again after the Lapita episode.
If the Polynesians had colonized Melanesian islands, why havenβt they left their knowledge of navigation anywhere in Melanesia?
Regards,
PoldertijgerLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 48
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Saturday, 8th January 2011
The oldest reliable site date in Australia is ca 47Ka at Devils Liar in Western Australia.Genetic studies suggest that people arrived sporadically from the islands of Indonesia after that date.Seventh century Chinese records records describe a southern land where kangaroos had joeys in their pouches and people threw boomerangs.The Portuguese mapped the west coast of Australia with surprising accuracy in the early sixteenth sixteenth century and the Dutch explored Australia long before Cook landed in Botany Bay.There has been human traffic between New Guinea and Australia for over 45Ka.The first Australians often killed new male arrivals and kept there women.The number of male Y chromosome haplogroups in Oz is far exceeded by the number of female mtDNA haplogroups.
Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 49
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Saturday, 8th January 2011
Genetic studies have revealed that the Lapita were Melanesians and that the ancestors of the Polynesians arrived after the Lapita dentate stamped pottery and cultural package had been distributed to Vanuata and Fiji.The Melanesians, native Australians and New Guinea highlanders share ancient,but not recent,
genetic origins.New Guinea has contributed to the Queensland gene pool on numerous occasionsover the past 45ka.Link to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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Message 50
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 10th January 2011
Hello henvell,
That is an interesting piece of information, henvell. Do your sources tell you the region of origin of the Polynesians?
I've found a site that says that the Polynesians came from south-east asia conclusively, but it can't give an exact location of origin. See:
It says that the Polynesians claim to come "from the West" which could mean either Indonesia or Melanesia.
Be that as it may, says that the Polynesians develloped from 2000 to 500 BC on Samoa, whereas the Lapita article at Wikipedia states that the Lapita pottery is found from 800 BC in the Samoa area, so if Polynesians are different from Lapitas it is strange to consider that Polynesians were on the island before the Lapitas but didn't leave a trace until the Lapitas disappeared.
I'm still not convinced that Polynesians didn't evolve out of the Lapitas
It says, too, that the people of Tonga, which is Polynesian, are genetically a mixture of Melanesians and Polynesians.
The Samoan word Tonga means 'South.' It is held in Samoan oral tradition that the original people of Tonga were Polynesians from Samoa. Later, Melanesians moved in from nearby Fiji and Vanuatu. Tonga-Samoan Polynesians procreated with the Melanesians of Fiji and Vanuatu and developed the modern-day Tongan bloodlines, which explains the scientific findings of mixed Polynesian-Melanesian genetic markers of Tongans (Genetics 2002). Melanesian cultural influence was very strong in the Tonga islands, thus Polynesians retreated back to Samoa.Β
This would suggest that the Polynesians had grown loath of sharing an island with people of another culture.
Regards,
PoldertijgerLink to this forum: Why didn't the polynesians settle in Australia?
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