As a young scholar of Polynesian anthropology, Bishop Museum ethnologist Kenneth Emory conducted ground-breaking fieldwork in the Tuamotus in the early 1930s. Little did he know that several stone adzes (hafted woodworking tool) he obtained then, would solve one of the long-standing problems in ancient Polynesian migration and trade.
The picture shows 'From the Collection of Bishop Museum. A typical late prehistoric style, fine-grained basalt (hawaiite) adze collected from the low coral island of Napuka, northwest Tuamotus in central Polynesia. Isotope and trace element data indicate that the source rock for this adze was obtained from Kaho'olawe, 4000 km distant. (Photo courtesy Betty Lou Kam, Bishop Museum).'
Although Hawaiian oral histories mention voyaging from Hawai'i to Tahiti and back via the Tuamotus, a total open ocean journey of more than 8,000 kilometers, until now, no objects originating from Hawai'i had ever been identified in central Polynesia.
This mystery has now been solved in a paper titled "Stone Adze Compositions and the Extent of Ancient Polynesian Voyaging and Trade" that was published in today's issue of the prestigious journal Science.
Read commentaries on this discovery here and here.
Volcanic rocks do not naturally occur on the low coral atolls of the Tuamotus. The lead isotope composition and trace element chemistry of one adze shows that it was manufactured from a volcanic rock that came from Hawai'i, rather than from a volcanic island in central Polynesia.
Former employee and long-time research associate of the Bishop Museum , archaeologist Dr Marshall Weisler (now Head of the Archaeology Program, School of Social Science , University of Queensland , Australia ) enlisted the technical expertise of geochemist, Professor Ken Collerson (Earth Sciences, UQ) to determine the source of the adze. Surprisingly, the adze was made from rock from Kaho ' olawe, approximately 4000 km distant from where it was collected in the northwest Tuamotus.
Some 25 years ago Weisler began experimenting with different geochemical methods used to "fingerprint" the unique properties of Polynesian stone tools. These fingerprints are used to assign artifacts to geological sources or quarries and ancient migration and trade routes could then be reconstructed.
The Kaho ' olawe adze has a similar chemistry to rocks found along the westernmost point of the island at Lae o Kealaikahiki (literally, "cape or headland of the way to Tahiti"). Before beginning voyages south from Hawai'i, the ancient voyagers in their sea going canoes most likely stopped near Lae o Kealaikahiki. Here they apparently collected rocks, like that from which the adze was subsequently made, to take on their voyage, either as ballast or as gifts.
Using knowledge of the chemistry and the unique isotopic compositions of mantle sources of volcanic rocks in Polynesia, Collerson and Weisler have identified the sources of every one of the 19 adzes in their study.
The varied chemistry of the adzes showed that they were obtained from throughout East Polynesia, including the Marquesas, Austral and Society Islands, and the Pitcairn Group and reaffirms the Tuamotus as the "cross-roads of Polynesia."
This innovative multi-disciplinary research by The University of Queensland researchers has provided the first physical confirmation of the remarkable voyages from Hawai'i to central Polynesia that are documented in the oral histories.
By confirming the extent of ancient interisland trade within East Polynesia they have also resolved a fundamental and long-standing archaeological problem concerning migration and cultural exchange within East Polynesia , the last region on Earth settled by humans during prehistory. This uninterrupted travel between Hawai'i and the Tuamotus represents the longest documented voyage in world prehistory. -- www.bishopmuseum.org
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