Prehistoric maritime migration in the Pacific islands: an hypothesis of ENSO forcing

Date

2006

Authors

Anderson, Atholl
Chappell, John
Gagan, Michael
Grove, Richard

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Sage Publications Inc

Abstract

Long-distance human migration across the Pacific Ocean occurred during the late Holocene and originated almost entirely in the west. As prevailing tradewinds blow from the east, the mechanisms of prehistoric seafaring have been debated since the sixteenth century. Inadequacies in propositions of accidental or opportunistic drifting on occasional westerlies were exposed by early computer simulation. Experimental voyaging in large, fast, weatherly (windward-sailing) double-canoes, together with computer simulation incorporating canoe performance data and modern, averaged, wind conditions, has supported the traditional notion of intentional passage-making in a widely accepted hypothesis of upwind migration by strategic voyaging. The critical assumption that maritime technology and sailing conditions were effectively the same prehistorically as in the historical and modern records is, however, open to question. We propose here that maritime technology during the late-Holocene migrations did not permit windward sailing, and show that the episodic pattern of initial island colonization, which is disclosed in recent archaeological data, matches periods of reversal in wind direction toward westerlies, as inferred from the millennial-scale history of ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation).

Description

Keywords

Keywords: El Nino-Southern Oscillation; Holocene; human settlement; migration route; wind field; Pacific islands; Pacific Ocean; Polynesia Colonization pattern; ENSO (El Nio-Southern Oscillation); Late Holocene; Pacific; Prehistoric seafaring; Remote Oceania; Wind reversals

Citation

Source

Holocene

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

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Restricted until

2037-12-31