WEBVTT - From the Vault: Pacific Navigation, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.800 Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we've 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.160 got an episode for you from the vault. This is 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:17.480 part one of our series on Pacific Island navigation, which 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:22.480 originally aired July seven. This was a really fun series. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.560 Uh my mind was was truly expanded by the stuff 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.000 we read for this episode. Uh so we hope you 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:35.400 enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:44.600 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.239 for a couple of episodes, maybe more. We're not sure 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.440 how these things ultimately fall together, but we're gonna be 0:00:54.480 --> 0:01:00.360 talking about how humans discovered and ultimately colonized the Polynesian Islands, 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.760 places we know today as uh the Islands of Hawaii, 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:09.800 Easter Island, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Fiji, 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.000 uh Tuvalu, and more so in our in our information 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.560 and intercontinental travel age. Though I feel like these names 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.800 may seem very familiar and known, even though they might 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:25.000 be places that we also paradoxically know are very far away. 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.080 From us. We may know that they are, in many cases, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:34.039 you know, vastly separated from other islands. But just because 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.080 we can pull up pictures of them, just because we know, 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:38.840 we could book a flight to one of these if 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.080 we so desired, Uh, they may seem closer, they may 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.520 see the world may seem smaller than it actually is. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.080 You know, there's a very limited way of imagining what 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.360 planet Earth is where you know, you say, okay, somebody 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.000 picture the Earth, and and what do people picture. I 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.200 think they probably picture looking down at some continental part 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.360 of the Earth, maybe seeing mountain ranges, maybe seeing the 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.440 Sahara Dessert or something. But often people picture land, right, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.000 they picture the continents. But if you look at Earth 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.520 from space, what it's really characterized by his ocean. Ocean 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.920 covers most of the Earth's surface, and there's one ocean 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.240 in particular that really takes the cake. It's the Pacific Ocean. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:19.200 but but I definitely wanted to drive home just how 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.960 large the territories we're talking about here, and we're when 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.240 we're talking about the colonization of this region, we're not 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.320 talking about European colonization. We're talking about the original human 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.840 sailors who departed from Asia and gradually settled the remainder 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.680 of the world, uh, setting off into the unknown. But 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:41.400 then also depending on navigation, some really fascinating navigation techniques 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.000 that we'll get into in order to uh to to 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.639 chart this region. So yeah, when you look at at 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.960 a map of the globe, it depends on how you're 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.280 looking at it. Right, If you're you're taking a very 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.040 um uh, North America centric version and a very North 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.639 America centric globe, you're like, all right, there's the Earth, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.760 it's mostly US, it's mostly North America. But you turn 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.280 it around, you uh, you turn it to the Pacific side, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.160 and you're looking at a water world, a true water world. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.480 You're you're looking at a side of the globe that 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.840 is almost all Pacific Ocean. Because the Pacific Ocean is 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.560 just simply enormous. It's the largest and the deepest averse oceans. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:24.160 We're talking sixty three million, eight hundred thousand square miles, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.200 that's approximately a hundred and sixty five million, two hundred 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.600 and fifty thousand square kilometers, and it takes up one 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.600 third of Earth's surface or thirty percent of it, depending 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.320 on who's doing the calculation. It contains the deepest parts 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.880 of the oceans, and it contains more than half of 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:43.480 the world's open water supply. Specifically within the realm of 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.680 of Polynesia and Micronesia, these these subdivisions of parts of Oceania, 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.920 which is the you know, the region of the Pacific 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.200 containing the Pacific Islands where people live, um there in 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.119 this part of the world. There's an author named David 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.040 Lewis whose book I'm going to refer to throughout these episodes. 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.640 But there's a part of his book where he says 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:05.240 that if you exclude New Zealand, within Polynesia and Micronesia, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.160 there are two parts land to every one thousand parts water. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.240 Uh So this is this is an area characterized almost 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.960 entirely by water, but polka dotted with these little hubs 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:22.400 of land throughout. Yeah, various far flung islands that people 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.400 were able to to eventually colonize and and and make 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.880 their home. And it's yeah, it's it's fascinating. How again, 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.640 I've I've been to I've been fortunate enough to travel 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.200 to you know, say that some of the Hawaiian islands 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.039 and you get there and you know, they're they're amazing 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.599 But but like, I don't have the experience of of 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.800 just the open Pacific, of of the of the many places, 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.840 the majority of the places in the Pacific Ocean where 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.839 there is no side of land, where there is only 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.160 the open water. Now, you don't have to be deep 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:57.800 into historical theories of human migration to grasp the question 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.479 of like looking at all these islands in the Pacific, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.600 seeing how far away they are from each other, how 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.120 how small a percent of the area of the Pacific 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.080 Ocean the islands represent, and notice how many of them 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.640 are populated by people, and wonder, how on earth did 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.800 that happen? How did people find and settle on all 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.360 of these tiny islands in this vast ocean. Yeah, it's 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.320 it's it's a fascinating question one that one that we're 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.440 still exploring to this day. We're still figuring out. But 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.040 we're gonna be getting in a little bit more into 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.360 the history of it and certainly into the navigational techniques 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.760 the amazing ways that these these ancient sailors made their 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.480 way across the open ocean. But first of all, let's 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.200 let's go ahead and just drive home that while while 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.960 human colonization of the Pacific Islands is one of the 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:50.440 most recent human migration movements in our history. It still retains, 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.240 you know, more than a few mysteries and using everything 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.240 from traditional histories and linguistic analysis to climate models and genetics, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.000 researchers are still continuing to try and figure out exactly 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:05.760 how this migration occurred, when it occurred, where, uh, you know, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:10.720 where where we went where humans migrated to first in 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.800 this and so we're going to be dealing with some 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.240 tentative dates here as we we roll through, like the 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.320 basic story of human migration across the Pacific. So, according 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:26.360 to Linda Noreene Schaefer in Maritime Southeast Asia to five hundred, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.080 this was a book that came out in the ancestors 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.920 of Maleo Polynesians left the mainland to settle Um the 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.760 island of Taiwan around four thousand BC, and from there 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.480 they moved into what is now the Philippines and Indonesia, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.680 and then during the third millennium BC, they moved on 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.520 to settle the islands uh And and Peninsula peninsulas of 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:54.279 what Schaefer refers to as Southeast Asia's maritime realm, and 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.839 the people who remained there came to be known as 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.680 the Malays. So from here we see movement of the 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.360 aim people's further out into the Ocean UH, the very 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.520 movement of human migration that would eventually become the Polynesians. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.280 By fifteen hundred b C. They had reached as far 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.840 as the Bismarck Archipelago north east of New Guinea and 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.760 Um and Schaefer rights that within a few centuries they 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.760 had spread to West Polynesia that's Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:29.600 Polynesian sailors, explorers and colonists continued and eventually they're eventually 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.360 reached and colonized the far more remote eastward islands of Hawaii, 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.880 UM what is now New Zealand, and what we have 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.200 also come to refer to as Easter Island or Rapa Nui. 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.720 All right, so now let's try and put some dates 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.080 on all of this. But of course all of this 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.520 is UH is playing out over a long period of time, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.040 and it's still an area of ongoing study and discussion, 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:54.440 So these dates are tended. In schaefer work, Some of 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.040 the estimated dates she sites include Rapa Nui around five 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.840 hundred CE, although estimates seem I've seen estimates that suggest 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.640 as early as three hundred c E. And then uh 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:11.320 in ninete, the University of Hawaii's Dennis um Kawajarada suggested 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.960 the following dates. He says, Okay, hundreds and gathers inhabited 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.240 Australia and New Guinea by fifty thousand years ago, and 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.880 then around the between sixteen hundred and twelve hundred b 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.600 c E. A cultural complex called Lapita had spread from 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.760 New Guinea in Melanesia to as far east as Fiji, Samoa, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.800 and Tonga, and then Polynesian culture developed at the eastern 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.040 edge of this region. And then he says that around 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.440 three hundred b C. Or earlier, seafares from Samoa and 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.280 Tonga discovered and settled islands to the east what are 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.599 known now it's the Cook Islands, uh Tahiti, Nui, uh To, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.480 Omotos and Hiva. And then around three hundred sea or earlier, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.640 voyagers from central or eastern Polynesia discovered in settled eastern island, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.719 and then around four hundred sea or earlier, voyagers from 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.960 the Cook Islands Tahiti, Nua and or He settled Hawaii. 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.000 And then around one thousand CE or earlier, he wrote 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.960 that the voyagers from the Society Islands and or the 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.200 Cook Islands settled what is now in New Zealand. Now again, 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.840 these are just tentative dates. Um. There. You know, there's 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:15.640 been a lot of other work. For instance, according to 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.760 the University of Hawaii at Manoa anthropologist Terry Hunt, and 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:24.240 this is via Hokalua dot com, which will refer back 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.640 to that website some more in the future. Uh. They 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.040 were part of a radio carbon study looking at artifacts 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.680 from the island and they adjusted some of the suggested 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.160 timelines based on that work, ultimately arguing for a more 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.360 rapid and recent colonization of the outer islands. Specifically, he 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:44.160 proposed Samoa around eight hundred b c e, the Central 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:49.280 Society Islands between ten and eleven twenty, and dispersal into 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.520 New Zealand, Hawaii and Rapa Nui in other locations between 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:57.040 eleven ninety and twelve nineties. Um, and I've seen twelve 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.000 hundred CE is sometimes cited as the most recent possibilit 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.200 pity for Rappa Newly colonization. And so yeah, I know 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:04.920 we're hitting every one of a lot of dates here. 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.959 I highly suggest going out on your own and finding 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.000 some of these sources and pouring over them in more 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.160 detail if you want to get get a clear picture 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:13.840 of how this is going. There are also some wonderful 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.960 visual aids depicting uh, you know, exactly how these waves 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.719 of migration might have looked UH. And I'm always fascinated 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.600 by those uh even though they you know, they often change. Again, 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.680 they're subject to the same uh level of change that 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.600 we see with some of the possible dates for arrivals 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.080 and colonizations, etcetera. And again, it's a very exciting area 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.240 of study, and you'll you'll see papers arguing for the 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:39.839 for for other things as well, the likes of South 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:45.160 American and even Antarctic contact by various Polynesian people, UM 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.640 and UH. And I it's my understanding I didn't go 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:48.960 deep into some of those. I think some of those 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.040 are are kind of controversial or some of them and 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.720 certainly some of the evidence is maybe not as as solid. 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.959 But it just to give you an idea of where 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.400 some of the research is going today and what people 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.480 are looking at. UM. Regardless of the exact dates, you know, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:07.359 we can't discount the wonder and accomplishment of the whole scenario. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.840 You know that this This was this last age of 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:16.360 true human um exodus, true human discovery and colonization, visiting 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:21.319 places that humans had never been before, creating a foothold 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.760 of human civilization in places that had belonged only um, 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.800 you know, to various animals before, in the case of 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.400 the Laggan Islands, places where the no mammals had ever 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.880 arrived there, that had not flown or swam through the seas. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:35.360 You know that you had to have been a bat 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.320 or a seal. I want to read a quote from 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.120 from the University of Hawaii's Dennis Colorada here for which 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.720 he he really sums a lot of this up um. 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.319 And again this is from there. That um hoku lea 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.960 website at hokal dot com. That's h o k u 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.800 l e a dot com. Uh, he writes quote. The 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.880 Polynesian migration to Whai was part of one of the 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.720 most remarkable achievements of humanity, the discovery and settlement of 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.200 the remote, widely scattered islands of the Central Pacific. The 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.760 migration began before the birth of Christ, while Europeans were 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.440 sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.080 instruments that would allow them to venture out into the 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.920 open ocean. Voyagers from Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa began to 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.080 settle islands in an ocean area of over ten million 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.640 square miles. The settlement took a thousand years to complete 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.560 and involve finding and fixing in mind the position of 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.520 islands sometimes less than a mile in diameter, on on 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.800 which the highest landmark was a coconut tree. By the 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.160 time European explorers into the Pacific Ocean in the sixteenth century, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.520 almost all the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.559 of years. It's truly remarkable. Yeah, especially when you, I 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.840 mean you get beyond the exact timelines and you start 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.319 looking at how they traveled and how they navigated, UM, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.400 and what these islands were like when they found them. Uh, 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.280 we're gonna be you know, we're gonna get into more 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.240 into the navigation models UM, either later in this episode 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.400 or in the next. But as Calahorada points out, what 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.920 we're talking about voyages conducted entirely in canoes made from 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.640 wood and coconut fiber, constructed with tools made from bone, 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.760 rock and coral. They use sails woven from coconut or 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.560 or pandana sleeves, and when no win was available, they paddled. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.480 And these were dangerous voyages as well, not only at 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.199 open sea, but when you arrived on some of these places, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:33.000 it's easy to imagine this sort of stereotypical like Paradise Island. Uh, 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.400 you know vision where Okay, you've reached the island, the 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:37.679 dangerous part is done. Now you're in this place. It's 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:42.560 lush and full of life, but that's not really when 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:44.640 you get there. Yeah, like there's gonna be you know, 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.320 a bunch of animals ready for the picking, and you know, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.480 there there. If you get into specifics, there are some 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.880 cases where there's some sort of of of of of 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.480 of natural, naturally occurring animal on that island or the 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.599 waters around it that are perhaps easier pickings. But in 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.920 other bass you're dealing with environments where again, like they're 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.000 they're just no mammals, there are no large meaty birds. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.040 Uh you know, they're they're desolate, they're played. In some cases, 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.880 there was very difficult for humans to you know, find 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.440 the resources they needed to survive, unless they of course 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.560 brought them with them on voyages, which adds this other 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.120 wrinkle to these to these voyages, that you would have 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.680 to bring things like pigs, chickens, et cetera. So at 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.440 the same time, I want to drive home that there's 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.760 no one island environment here. There's a wide variety in 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.040 the sorts of islands and island environments you encounter across 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.600 this vast region. Uh So the story is gonna be 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.160 a little different each time. So again, in many cases 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.480 they had to bring important plant or animal species with them, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.560 which of course is the same story you see in 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.040 land based migration, except with the challenges of an open boat. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.120 And so you'd end up with this first wave of 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.000 invasive species on the island. And these are often called 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.880 canoe plants and canoe animals because again that's how they 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.960 reach their destinations. And ultimately we're talking daw pigs, chickens, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:05.040 but also plants such as sugarcane, banana, coconut, taro, and 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.080 bad boot. So some of these plants that are so 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.000 you know, linked in the mind and linked culturally to 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.040 these islands, that you have to remind yourself that they 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.200 were not always there. They were brought with them with 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.840 the people who settled these islands. Yeah, though personally right 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.120 now my mind is fixated on the idea of having 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.120 to make long sea voyages with like a canoe full 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.520 of chickens. Yeah, but it it was done. And uh, 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.880 and as we'll get into much later, you know, in 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.800 order to prove that these voyages were possible, they had 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:34.680 to do things like bringing animals with them on the 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.600 test voyages. So uh, it's it's fascinating now on this 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.080 topic of of the the environments on these different islands 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.760 and how they weren't fully stocked life nourishing buffets. I 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.320 thought that that David Lewis made an excellent point in 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.280 that book that you you mentioned briefly earlier. Oh yeah, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.240 So to name this book, I'm gonna be referring to 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.600 it throughout these episodes. It's one I've been reading that 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.520 is a seminal work in the history of studies of 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.120 Pacific island navigation. And this was originally published by the 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.240 University of Hawaii Press in nineteen seventy two. It was 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.280 by a medical doctor, sailor and scholar named David Lewis, 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.240 and it's called We the Navigators, The Ancient Art of 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.840 Land Finding in the Pacific. I was published in seventy two, 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.800 but I think updated with some subsequent editions at least 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.960 in nineteen nine, and it may have gone through other 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.680 editions since then. But this is a really interesting book 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:29.080 because its studies traditional Pacific navigation and land finding techniques, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.160 not just by the the indirect evidence of trying to 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.080 like look at the history, but actually by putting them 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:40.600 to direct experiments, so navigating with experienced master navigators from 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.920 various Pacific islands and studying their techniques firsthand. Yeah. Yeah. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.360 And and the point that that Lewis makes about the 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.720 stark environments was really neat because it meant that the 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.560 dangerous voyage to get to these islands and establish yourself 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.480 on these islands. You it didn't mean that you could stop. 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.400 In many cases, you would have to keep making voyages 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.440 because there were certain resources that you could not get 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.280 at the new island. But we're worth the dangerous journey 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.719 to acquire. Uh. The example that that Lewis brings up 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.080 is the lack of hard stone on the Cook Island 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.760 of Puka Puka, requiring journeys to take place uh two 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.359 islands where hard stone could be acquired for use in 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.000 vital tool construction. And he writes that these would have 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.880 been complex trading cycles that would have also been influenced by, 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.560 you know, other human factors like the sense of you know, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.879 the desire for adventure, the um or, and also the 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.879 necessity of exile, which I found interesting, like ultimately the 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.359 idea of having a complex culture and cultural dynamics on 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.600 a single island. What what where do you send people? 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.760 Where do people run to? Uh? If if there if 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.359 there's some sort of political turmoil on the island, so 0:17:50.480 --> 0:18:00.280 contact sometimes remains in place because of that as well. Now, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.320 before we get into the specifics of of of navigation 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:08.520 in among Pacific islanders and the colonizing of Polynesia, I 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.600 thought we might briefly touch on some of the basics 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:16.119 of sailing and navigation, is larger trends and human technology. UM. 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.400 We could easily do a proper even multi episode invention 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.080 episode about ships. But here are some of the key 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.960 dates provided in the seventy grade Inventions of the Ancient 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.680 World by Brian Fagan at all um, a book I 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.280 refer to that I referred to a lot, uh because 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.800 it's really good and again highly recommend people pick up 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.720 a copy of it. UM. But Fagan and the various 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.440 co authors that he worked on with the various sailing 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:44.639 and ship based chapters points out that seagoing watercraft just 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.600 in general dates back probably before forty thousand b CE. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.000 In Southeast Asia and Indonesia. We see longboats from Neanderthal 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.520 cultures from seventy two hundred b c E and we 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.920 see low graphs from seventh century BC and mess of Botania. Again, 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.199 these are just general dates based on some of the 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.040 earliest evidence we have. And then as far as things 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.960 like plank boats, and that goes back to like three 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.160 thousand BC in Egypt Um. And then finally we get 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.240 up to the frame first boats in the second and 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.440 third century CE in in my in what is now 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:22.720 all England. And as far as sailing, we have depictions 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.159 of sales from thirty one b C in Egypt. We 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.879 see two masted ships from sixth century in BC BC 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.760 in Egypt, and the oldest surviving sale comes from the 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.320 second century BC in Egypt. But again these are just 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:42.520 some of the oldest direct evidence that we have or depictions, descriptions, etcetera. 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.399 As Fagan points out in the section on navigation, with 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.720 Sean mcgrail, author of Boats of the World and professor 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.600 of Maritime archaeology. The earliest voyages for our ancestors would 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.240 have remained within sight of land. Landmarks and sea marks 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:58.679 would have been key to navigation. And we see this 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:03.200 reflected in record did traditions and classical and medieval sailing manuals. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.640 Makes sense, right, I mean it's like if if any 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.320 of us were to set out on a boat into 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.440 the water, I would want to keep land in sight. 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.520 I need to know where that land is. So all 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.640 of this early Uh, you know, oceanic activity would have 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.800 taken place withinside of land, and we depended upon things 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.240 you could notice on land. Uh. You know your frame 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.720 of reference. Reference was based on the place you came from. Sure, 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.240 but what happens when you leave side of land. Well, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:32.720 by the mid second millennium BC, sailors in the South 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.200 Pacific were of course doing this by means of what 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:40.520 we call environmental navigation. We'll be getting into this at length. Uh, 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:42.520 but you know, at this point you have to travel 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.119 beyond dependence on coastal landmarks and sea marks. But that 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.000 doesn't mean that there's not an order and language to 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.880 the open ocean. And for those who had the wisdom 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.720 and the observational skills, of the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors. 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.000 They could plot their way by these queues, they could 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.760 recognize them, they could read them app of the ocean. 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.800 Now we'll get into the details of this in a bit, 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:06.720 but as Fagan and mcgrail point out, you'll find indirect 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:11.560 references to environmental navigation methodologies in Homer's the Odyssey as 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.800 well as in the medieval text of the Life of St. Brendan. 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.920 And environmental navigation would have been used in some form 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.680 worldwide by the first millennium CE, and that's when instruments 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.880 began to pop up. That's when we begin to use 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:29.520 these various technological things to help us, uh make our 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.320 way across the open water. But with the navigators of 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:37.160 the Pacific Islands, we're talking again about peak environmental navigation, 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.879 a level of advancement that exceeded anything else in the 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:42.760 rest of the world, anything else that the rest of 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.000 the world was capable of, or had been capable of, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.880 um aweing some of the first Europeans to encounter such 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.439 techniques and for a while seeming simply impossible to some 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.960 Western minds. Uh, you know that, for for a while 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.600 it just seemed impossible that, oh, the people who are 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.399 you know, they live in these islands. They must be 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.240 here by accident, they must be here by mistake, and 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.040 they're merely survivors of the ocean. They're not masters of 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.919 its navigation. But as we'll get to they were. They 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.639 were the masters. That's exactly right, And that's actually one 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.200 of the main points that David Lewis makes in this book, 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.200 We the Navigators. Um. He was responding in some ways 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.359 to kind of trends in scholarship on the on the 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.000 settlement of the Pacific Islands that had tended to say that, well, 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:29.920 a large number of these islands must have just been 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.560 settled and discovered by accident, right, that maybe a fisherman 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.679 or traders were out at sea and they became lost, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.440 they drifted off course, and just by happenstance they drifted 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.439 to new islands that hadn't been settled before, and then 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.680