Abstract
Two climatic factors stand out as relevant to the maritime expansions involved in the later west–east exploration and colonization of the southern Pacific: global warmth for protection against hypothermia and strong El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events capable of reversing the direction of the trade winds and currents. The major impact of ENSO events in tropical Polynesia during the Medieval Climatic Optimum, however, was more in precipitating than in supporting migrations. In tropical Polynesia after c. AD 900, El Niño events brought in their wake droughts, famine and conflict over land and resources, triggering migrations for the starving and defeated. The pattern of strong to severe El Niños in the two global warm periods covered by the low Nile flood proxy data reflects pulses of exploration and migration within tropical Polynesia. It also reflects the pattern of drought-driven migration from Eastern Polynesia to New Zealand that took place in the Medieval Climatic Optimum. In both periods El Niño low Nile proxy data suggests an associated chronology. We have chosen, as a focus for establishing this chronology, Polynesian genealogies associated with a line of navigators and explorers, some of whose exploits are recorded in tradition and can be linked to and tested against an El Niño-based chronology.
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Pearce, C.E., Pearce, F. (2010). Correlation of Significant Voyaging Activity with Rare Extreme Climate Events. In: Oceanic Migration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_19
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