Polynesian Triangle Research Articles

"Feeling at home in Vanuatu": Integration of newcomers from the East during the last millennium.

Several localities across the Vanuatu archipelago (Melanesia), so-called 'Polynesian Outliers', are inhabited by communities that display Polynesian linguistic and cultural features although being located outside the Polynesian Triangle. Several introductions of Polynesian genetic components to Central and Southern Vanuatu during the last millenium have resulted in the cultural distinctiveness observed among the Polynesian Outliers in Vanuatu. However, social, political or economic process surrounding the exchange of genes between Polynesian and local individuals remain unidentified. Recent bioanthropological studies suggest the existence of female mobilities from neighboring regions to Vanuatu but also to the Polynesian Outliers of Taumako (Solomon Islands) within patrilocal societies. We aim to examine the hypothesis that Polynesian biological affinities observed in ancient individuals from Vanuatu are gendered or sex-specific, and that some of the Polynesian migrations during the last millennium may have involved practices of exogamy. By reconstructing phenotypes and biological identities from 13 archaeologically-recovered human skulls (400-300 years ago) from "Polynesian-related" regions of Vanuatu, we provide new insights to better contextualize the settlement patterns of Polynesian individuals. Eastern-Pacific associated phenotype are observable in 4 women from the Eretok burial complex (Efate region) and the Polynesian Outlier of Futuna, who were buried in close proximity to individuals with Western-Pacific associated phenotype. We suggest that close integration of individuals from the East into the local Vanuatu society, as well as the practice of exogamy, might have been key processes contributing to the preservation of Polynesian cultural features in Vanuatu over the past millennium. Our finding are cross-referenced with oral records from these two areas, as well as the known genetic makeup of the Vanuatu Polynesian Outliers.

Artifact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers

Although the peopling of Remote Oceania is well-documented as a general process of eastward migrations from Island Southeast Asia and Near Oceania toward the archipelagos of Remote Oceania, the origin and the development of Polynesian societies in the Western Pacific (Polynesian Outliers), far away from the Polynesian triangle, remain unclear. Here, we present a large-scale geochemical sourcing study of stone artifacts excavated from archeological sites in central Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the Caroline Islands and provide unambiguous evidence of multiple long-distance voyages, with exotic stone materials being transported up to 2500 kilometers from their source. Our results emphasize high mobility in the Western Pacific during the last millennium CE and offer insights on the scale and timing of contacts between the Polynesian Outliers, their neighbors in the Western Pacific, and societies of Western Polynesia.

Hawaiki According to Tupaia: Glimpses of Knowing Home in Precolonial Remote Oceania

Abstract This essay looks into the concept of an ancestral homeland in Remote Oceania, commonly referred to as Hawaiki (‘Avaiki; Havai‘i; Hawai‘i). Hawaiki intriguingly challenges Eurocentric notions of ‘home.’ Following the rapid settlement of the so-called Polynesian triangle from Samoa/Tonga at around 1000 AD, Hawaiki has emerged as a concept that is both mythological and real; genealogical and geographic; singular and yet portable, existing in plural regional manifestations. I argue that predominantly Pakeha/Popa‘ā research trying to identify Hawaiki as a singular and geographically fixed homeland is misleading. I tap into the archive surrounding the Ra‘iātean tahu‘a and master navigator Tupaia who joined Captain Cook’s crew during his first voyage to the Pacific to offer glimpses of an alternative ontology of home and epistemology of Oceanic ‘homing.’

Naming ‘Polynesia’: Cartography, Geography, and Toponymy of the ‘Fifth Part of the World’

ABSTRACT This paper is a narrative history of European placenaming in the ‘fifth part of the world’ or ‘Oceania’, focusing on the ambiguous toponym ‘Polynesia’. The ‘Southern World’ remained little known and undifferentiated in 1756 when Charles de Brosses partitioned it into the geographical regions ‘Polynesia’, ‘Australasia’ (both neologisms), and ‘Magellanica’. The term Polynesia is traced through its chameleon usages in Euro-US cartographies and geographies and shifting relationships with Australasia/Australia and Oceania, to its 20th-century global standardization to label the Polynesian triangle. The paper draws on the rich, ever-burgeoning resources of online map collections, especially in the National Library of Australia and the David Rumsey Map Collection. It also outlines the author’s forensic efforts to identify innovation, genealogy, and anachronism in the historical trajectories of the toponym Polynesia.

Securing the Maritime Domain: U.S. and New Zealand in a Bordered Pacific

Maritime security in the Pacific differs according to whose security is under threat and in what geographical location. Like the fluidity of the ocean, maritime security is dynamic involving multiple interests. But the Pacific is also a very bordered space. Drawing on a December 2019 study tour of US defence facilities in Hawai’i, this article addresses the question “How are United States (US) and New Zealand maritime security interests bordered in the Pacific and what are the implications?” First, the article situates maritime security within state territoriality and defence of borders. It then examines the Pacific Ocean as a bordered space, and sketches US and New Zealand interests within it, including differentiating Indo-Pacific from Pacific. Next, each country’s means of securing their maritime domains in the Pacific is explicated, the arenas of cooperation and gaps in knowledge worth re searching further. It concludes by discussing US-NZ maritime cooperation with in the framing of a Pacific maritime borderscape. One potential borderscape is the Polynesian Triangle. This article argues that defining a specifically bordered theatre of cooperation such as the Polynesian Triangle, driven by Pacific Island needs, is required to provide balance and visibility to non-military maritime security matters. Such a theatre of cooperation warrants further research.

Securing the Maritime Domain: U.S. and New Zealand in a Bordered Pacific

Maritime security in the Pacific differs according to whose security is under threat and in what geographical location. Like the fluidity of the ocean, maritime security is dynamic involving multiple interests. But the Pacific is also a very bordered space. Drawing on a December 2019 study tour of US defence facilities in Hawai’i, this article addresses the question “How are United States (US) and New Zealand maritime security interests bordered in the Pacific and what are the implications?” First, the article situates maritime security within state territoriality and defence of borders. It then examines the Pacific Ocean as a bordered space, and sketches US and New Zealand interests within it, including differentiating Indo-Pacific from Pacific. Next, each country’s means of securing their maritime domains in the Pacific is explicated, the arenas of cooperation and gaps in knowledge worth re searching further. It concludes by discussing US-NZ maritime cooperation with in the framing of a Pacific maritime borderscape. One potential borderscape is the Polynesian Triangle. This article argues that defining a specifically bordered theatre of cooperation such as the Polynesian Triangle, driven by Pacific Island needs, is required to provide balance and visibility to non-military maritime security matters. Such a theatre of cooperation warrants further research.

Resting Dynamics and Diel Activity of the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) in Rapa Nui, Chile

Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) 21170169 21160168 Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 3170392

The marae of Taputapuātea (Ra’iatea, Society Islands) in 2016: nature, age and origin of coral erected stones

The Taputapuatea marae of Ra’iatea is an emblematic landmark known throughout the world and sacred place for the Ma’ohi of Eastern Polynesia and the centre of a vast political-religious-cultural network in the Polynesian triangle. The erected stones constituting the ahu have been described as “limestone slabs” without precision by previous authors. These are in fact microatolls: corals (Porites) living in very shallow water and developing laterally, with a growth in height being limited by the lowest tide at the time of growth. A total of 38 samples were U/Th dated, of which 19 microatolls result in ages between 3 and 5 millennia. These are fossil microatolls that existed at a Holocene sea level of 0.80 m higher than today, when the Polynesians had not yet arrived. Other samples (molluscs, coral filling blocks) date back to the construction of the marae during the 17th-18th centuries. We hypothesize that the erected microatolls of the ahu were collected by Polynesians at the site and that others are still underground.

The Pacific Rat Race to Easter Island: Tracking the Prehistoric Dispersal of Rattus exulans Using Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes

The location of the immediate eastern Polynesian origin for the settlement of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), remains unclear with conflicting archaeological and linguistic evidence. Previous genetic commensal research using the Pacific rat, Rattus exulans; a species transported by humans across Remote Oceania and throughout the Polynesian Triangle, has identified broad interaction spheres across the region. However, there has been limited success in distinguishing finer-scale movements between Remote Oceanic islands as the same mitochondrial control region haplotype has been identified in the majority of ancient rat specimens. To improve molecular resolution and identify a pattern of prehistoric dispersal to Easter Island, we sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes from ancient Pacific rat specimens obtained from early archaeological contexts across West and East Polynesia. Ancient Polynesian rat haplotypes are closely related and reflect the widely supported scenario of a central East Polynesian homeland region from which eastern expansion occurred. An Easter Island and Tubuai (Austral Islands) grouping of related haplotypes suggests that both islands were established by the same colonization wave, proposed to have originated in the central homeland region before dispersing through the south-eastern corridor of East Polynesia.

Genome-wide Ancestry Patterns in Rapanui Suggest Pre-European Admixture with Native Americans

Rapa Nui (Easter Island), located in the easternmost corner of the Polynesian Triangle, is one of the most isolated locations on the planet inhabited by humans. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that the island was first colonized by Polynesians around AD 1200, during their eastward expansion. Although it remains contentious whether Polynesians reached South America, suggestive evidence has been brought forward supporting the possibility of Native American contact prior to the European "discovery" of the island in AD 1722. We generated genome-wide data for 27 Rapanui. We found a mostly Polynesian ancestry among Rapanui and detected genome-wide patterns consistent with Native American and European admixture. By considering the distribution of local ancestry tracts of eight unrelated Rapanui, we found statistical support for Native American admixture dating to AD 1280-1495 and European admixture dating to AD 1850-1895. These genetic results can be explained by one or more pre-European trans-Pacific contacts.

Ancient fishing activities developed in Easter Island

Easter Island, Rapa Nui or Te pito o te henua, is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean halfway between South America and Oceania, constituting one of the most isolated places on the planet. It was colonized by Polynesians at the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, thus becoming one of the extremes of the Polynesian triangle. The island is of volcanic origin, has a small surface area (166 km 2 ) and limited resources, and gave rise to a culture that is unique in the world, recognized internationally for its numerous megalithic constructions and large moai. Just as it was discovered and colonized by sea, the development and sustainability of the island is closely related to the ocean that surrounds it. The objective of this article is to describe the sailing and fishing techniques used by the Easter Islanders, or rapanuis, and their use of marine organisms prior to contact with Europeans, demonstrating their inventiveness and adaptation to the specific characteristics of this small territory.

Molluscan mulching at the margins: investigating the development of a South Island Māori variation on Polynesian hard mulch agronomy

AbstractHard mineral clast sediments applied to dry archaeological fields in the distant apical islands of the Polynesian triangle are frequently associated with sweet potato / kūmara (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam.) cultivation. In a novel variation on this practice, north‐western South Island Māori deposited tuangi (Austrovenus stutchburyi (Wood, 1828)) mollusc beach valves to cap 10–20 cm deep planting holes or pits by or around the sixteenth century AD at Triangle Flat, Golden Bay. Discrete tuangi beach valve sediment had been extended over much of the larger field surface in association with shallow (<10 cm deep) planting depressions. Surface shell deposits would have suppressed weed growth, redirected radiant energy onto young kūmara plants, and conserved planting pit soil and moisture against disruptive and desiccating winds, respectively. The temporal extension of Triangle Flat shell sediment could be related to socio‐economic and political pressures to improve kūmara production from a fixed land unit. However, since climate change beginning in the sixteenth century brought cooler temperatures and eventually, stronger westerly winds to this region, it seems more likely that shell mulch was extended to maintain shallow planting soils and production in a colder, windier period. This local, kūmara‐focused development may have been encouraged by the opportunity to apply ritually safe and perhaps spiritually potent, uncooked tuangi beach shell to tapu cultivation surfaces.

Ancient and historic dispersals of sweet potato in Oceania

On his voyages across the Pacific, Captain James Cook encountered geographically disparate Polynesian societies, including those living on Easter Island, Hawai’i, and the north island of New Zealand. These far-flung communities cultivated a South American domesticate, the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). Subsequent debates concerning the timing and nature of the dispersals of sweet potato into and across the Pacific have proven contentious, including Thor Heyerdahl’s famous Kon Tiki voyage from South America to Easter Island (1). Archaeological research has now conclusively shown that the sweet potato was introduced to Central Polynesia by approximately A.D. 1200 to 1300 (2), most likely by Polynesian voyagers who reached South America and subsequently spread the crop to the widely dispersed islands of the Polynesian triangle (e.g., ref. 3). Now, Roullier et al. (4) use genetic analyses (chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites) of modern and historically collected herbaria samples to clarify longstanding questions concerning historical dispersals of sweet potato across the Pacific. In sum, their research confirms key aspects of the “tripartite hypothesis” for sweet potato dispersal, with major implications beyond Oceania.

Evolution of Polynesian bark cloth and factors influencing cultural change

The origin and dispersal of the first human inhabitants of the Polynesian Triangle have been studied from many perspectives and significant progress in our understanding of Polynesian prehistory has derived from an intermingling of linguistics, archaeology, and genetics. Contributions from the ethnographic record, however, have been limited by the dearth of comparative methods that are useful for reconstructing prehistory and identifying and analyzing cross-cultural trends. For more than fifty years, cladistic phylogenetic methods have been used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of biological systems from contemporary trait distributions. These rigorous methods are applied herein to reconstruct the prehistoric evolution and dispersal of Polynesian bark cloth, using ethnographic data recorded since European contact with Polynesian cultures. Contrary to expectation given the earlier settlement of Western Polynesia, the Eastern Polynesian bark cloth traditions retained many ancestral features. In contrast, a suite of innovations appear in the Western Polynesian bark cloth traditions and it is asserted herein that the distribution of these traits may be associated with the rise of the Tongan maritime Empire. Within Eastern Polynesia, the pattern of diversification of bark cloth traditions is consistent with the breakdown of interaction spheres late in the settlement era.

Human ancient and extant mtDNA from the Gambier Islands (French polynesia): evidence for an early Melanesian maternal contribution and new perspectives into the settlement of easternmost Polynesia.

Molecular anthropology has been widely used to infer the origin and processes of the colonization of Polynesia. However, there are still a lack of representative geographical studies of Eastern Polynesia and unchallenged genetic data about ancient Polynesian people. The absence of both of these elements prevents an accurate description of the demographic processes of internal dispersion within the Polynesian triangle. This study provides a twofold analysis of ancient and modern mtDNA in the eastern part of French Polynesia: the Gambier Islands. The paleogenetic analyses conducted on burials of the Temoe Atoll (14(th) -17(th) centuries) represent the first fully authenticated ancient human sequences from Polynesia. The identification of the "Melanesian" Q1 mtDNA lineage in ancient human remains substantiates the Near Oceanic contribution to the early gene pool of this region. Modern samples originate from Mangareva Island. Genealogical investigations enable us to reliably identify the conservation of the Melanesian component in Easternmost Polynesia, despite recent European colonization. Finally, the identification of rare mutations in sequences belonging to haplogroup B4a1a1a provides new perspectives to the debate on the internal peopling of the Polynesian region. Altogether, the results laid out in our study put the emphasis on the necessity of controlled sampling when discussing the internal settlement of Polynesia.

New Polynesian Triangle: Rethinking Polynesian migration and development in the Pacific

AbstractFor many Polynesians migration is still framed within a particular spatial context, although on an enlarged scale – one that we have termed the New Polynesian Triangle. With its apexes in the North American continent to the east, Australia in the west and New Zealand in the south, this New Polynesian Triangle encompasses a particular field through which ongoing Polynesian migration and movement continues to occur. Movement within this New Polynesian Triangle is both multidimensional and multidirectional. While it is the movement of economic resources, particularly remittances, that has captured the interest of many agencies operating in the region, we argue that such economic flows are integrally linked with other flows – of goods, ideas, skills and culture – to form a single dynamic system of movement. Importantly, such flows are not uni‐directional (from ‘rich’ to ‘poor’ countries) as was assumed in times past. In developing ideas on the New Polynesian Triangle, we wish to move away from the dominant Western discourse of the Pacific Ocean as a barrier to development and movement and towards the reclamation of the ocean as a conduit and source of connection and movement for Pacific peoples.

Bruce Biggs, 1921-2000: A Tribute

Bruce Biggs died in Auckland on October 18, 2000, a month after his seventy-ninth birthday. [1] He was a distinguished scholar. He was also that rarer thing, an exceptional builder of academic institutions. He made major contributions in several different fields. In academic Maori studies, he was the most important figure of the twentieth century. He developed, at Auckland, the first university program in the study of Maori language, culture, and literature, and trained the people who later went on to head similar programs at other New Zealand universities. He initiated the first program in modern linguistics at a New Zealand university. He instigated studies of ethnomusicology and the setting up of the magnificent Archive of Maori and Pacific Island Music at the University of Auckland. And he was a seminal contributer to Oceanic linguistics, the principal force behind the great efflorescence of Polynesian descriptive and historical linguistics in the 1960s and 1970s. Heroes are generally made by history. Men and women who achieve distinction and influence usually have the times moving with them; they are actors who excel on a stage ready-made by the turn of events. But every now and then, there comes along someone who harnesses energies too diffuse to be called a trend or movement, who builds his own stage and fills it with a company of players that he has trained himself, who has, to a certain extent, made history happen. Bruce Biggs, in his corner of the world, which roughly equaled the Polynesian Triangle, proved to be such a man. EARLY DAYS. Bruce was born in Auckland on September 4, 1921, the eldest child of Mary (nee Grandison) and Thomas Herbert (Bert) Biggs. His sister, Patricia, was born two years later. Through his father, Bruce had Ngati Maniapoto blood, with connections to Te Keeti marae in Otorohanga. His father ran a hardware shop on Auckland's main street, and the family lived in New Lynn, then on the western fringe of Auckland city. He attended New Lynn Primary School and Mt. Albert Grammar School, where his contemporaries included Rob Muldoon (Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984) and his lifelong friend, Keith Sinclair, who became New Zealand's best known historian. It seems that Bruce's record as a high school student was uneven. He once told me that, in the national University Entrance exam for Latin, he scored eight percent. But he did not mention (I only learned this later from Keith Sinclair) that he gained the top mark in the nation in the English exam. Bruce gained an interest in Maori culture as a schoolboy during annual family holidays in Rotorua (he used to dive for tourist pennies with the Te Arawa children at the Whakarewarewa bridge), but he did not become a fluent speaker of Maori until after World War II. His lifelong interest in jazz and popular music was already evident at high school, where he played trumpet and founded the Boom Bali Boys dance band, popular around New Lynn in the late 1930s. He was a member of the Lifesavers' Club at Piha Beach. From school he went on to Auckland Teachers' College, qualifying as a teacher in 1940. During 1942-45, Bruce served as a sergeant (and bugler) in the New Zealand Second Expeditionary Force in Fiji. His job in communications gave him freedom to move around Viti Levu and to meet freely with Fijians. He made good use of this freedom to become fluent in Standard Fijian and to gather word lists, grammar notes, and legends in nonstandard dialects of western Viti Levu. Bruce's first two publications were an account of the Ba dialects of the Western Fijian language, and a short piece on Fijian riddles, both of which appeared in the Journal of the Polynesian Society in 1948. His long association with the Polynesian Society began during the War, when he met the editor, Clyde Taylor. Taylor assisted Bruce in his amateur ethnological studies in Fiji by lending him many books from his personal library. …

Ancient DNA from Polynesian rats: extraction, amplification and sequence from single small bones.

The human colonisation of Polynesia was a major event in world prehistory. It represents one of the last human population migrations, and one which required crossing major water barriers. Though the subject of Pacific population origins has been approached by scholars from numerous fields for nearly a century, recent years have seen the problem addressed by human geneticists. Since the initial report describing the recovery of DNA from skeletal remains, ancient DNA studies have also focused on the Pacific region. In this paper we present the results of ancient DNA analyses of Rattus exulans, an animal that was transported by ancestral Polynesians through the Pacific to the far reaches of the Polynesian triangle. Analysis of DNA of R. exulans skeletal remains has many advantages over studies of ancient human remains, yet the one drawback has been the recovery of ancient DNA from single bones of these very small rodents. We have successfully modified standard extraction protocols for ancient DNA and have consistently extracted, amplified and sequenced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from less than 0.1 g of R. exulans bone and tooth samples recovered from archaeological sites throughout the Pacific, ranging from 400 to 2000 years old.

Traditional Medicinal Plants of Rarotonga, Cook Islands Part I

IntroductionThe Cook Islands are a group of small widely scattered South Pacific islands and atolls in the centre of the Polynesian triangle. They lie between latitudes 8° and 23° South of the Equa...

A Radiocarbon Sequence from the Toaga Site, Ofu Island, American Samoa

The Samoan Archipelago occupies a critical position for understanding the dispersal of early Austronesian-speaking peoples into the southwestern Pacific, including the initial colonization by humans of the Polynesian triangle. To date, the most easterly reported site of the Lapita cultural complex (Green, 1979; Kirch, 1984; Kirch & Hunt, 1988) is the Mulifanua site on Upolu Island, Western Samoa (Green & Davidson, 1974). Lapita colonists settled the larger, western Samoan Islands by the end of the second millennium bc. Archaeologic and linguistic evidence also suggest that the islands of Eastern Polynesia (eg, Marquesas, Society and Cook Islands) were settled, at least in part, from Samoa. However, the timing of this movement into Eastern Polynesia has not yet been dated to earlier than ca 150 bc on the basis of radiocarbon dating of cultural materials from the Marquesas Islands (Kirch, 1986; Ottino, 1985). This has raised the issue of whether there was a “long pause” between the settlement of Samoa (and the other islands of Western Polynesia, such as Tonga, Futuna, and ‘Uvea) and that of Eastern Polynesia (Irwin, 1981; Kirch, 1986; Terrell, 1986).