Sedentism, subsistence and socio-political organization in prehistoric New Zealand

Abstract

Much archaeological thinking about the interrelationships between subsistence, sedentism and socio-political organization has been carried out within an evolutionary framework. The classic model sees the development of complex social organization linked to a rise in the importance of agriculture and of a sedentary way of life. The New Zealand record offers challenges to this model. New Zealand is an unusual case involving a society moving from an agricultural to a predominantly hunting and gathering base and then, following large-scale faunal depletions, back towards agriculture. Despite these marked changes in subsistence practices there is little evidence in the archaeological or ethnographic record for any substantial alterations in patterns of mobility, sedentism or socio-political organization over the full duration of the New Zealand sequence. In the New Zealand case, cultural traditions inherited from tropical East Polynesia are shown to have been more influential than economics in determining the nature of Maori settlement and social organization.