Why Were Polynesians So Advanced For Sailing?

Polynesians, who sailed the sea hundreds of years before Europeans, used voyaging canoes crafted from island materials and stone tools. The ocean was integrated naturally into Polynesian culture, as they came from small islands surrounded by vast ocean expanses. Polynesian navigation or wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes.

When Captain James Cook explored the Pacific in the late 1760s and 1770s, he recognized the Polynesians. The leading theory is that Polynesian ancestors started in Southeast Asia and over the course of thousands of years, constructed vessels and used currents to populate offshore islands. Outlier Polynesians on Anuta still make single-outrigger sailing canoes, which they have been known to sail hundreds of miles – to Vanikoro, northern Vanuatu, and recently to Vanikoro.

New research published today in Nature suggests that the Polynesians who erected mysterious stone figures on islands built pretty good boats and mastered sailing and navigation techniques. They built pretty good boats and mastered sailing and navigation techniques, using stars, winds, waves, swells, currents, clouds, and more.

One theory posited by researchers is that strong El Nino winds may have been a major factor in The Long Pause as they would have made sailing easier. Canoes with V-shaped hulls sail better upwind because they generate more hydrodynamic side force. As voyages became longer, they developed a highly sophisticated navigation system based on observations of the stars, ocean swells, and flight patterns.

The Polynesians were expert sailors, and research suggests they landed in the Americas centuries before Columbus.

When did Polynesians stop sailing?

Then, within the windows of opportunity revealed by Ian’s team, Polynesians suddenly reached Easter Island, Hawaii and NZ before the large-scale migration ceased around 1300.

“The winds were favourable for Polynesian migration in this couple of hundred year period,” Ian says.

The new data suggests the epic voyage could have been achieved in a couple of weeks during these climate windows, four times faster than during other periods with less favourable wind conditions – especially when travelling in the type of canoe examined by Dilys’ team.

Why are Polynesians the world’s best navigators?

Through constant observation, navigators were able to detect changes in the speed of their canoes, their heading, and the time of day or night. Polynesian navigators thus employed a wide range of techniques including the use of the stars, the movement of ocean currents and wave patterns, the patterns of bioluminescence that indicated the direction in which islands were located, the air and sea interference patterns caused by islands and atolls, the flight of birds, the winds and the weather.

Certain seabirds such as the white tern and noddy tern fly out to sea in the morning to hunt fish, then return to land at night. Navigators seeking land sail opposite the birds’ path in the morning and with them at night, especially relying on large groups of birds, and keeping in mind changes during nesting season.

Harold Gatty suggested that long-distance Polynesian voyaging followed the seasonal paths of bird migrations. In The Raft Book, a survival guide he wrote for the U.S. military during World War II, Gatty outlined various Polynesian navigation techniques for shipwrecked sailors or aviators to find land. There are some references in their oral traditions to the flight of birds, and Gatty claimed that departing voyages used onshore range marks pointing to distant islands in line with their flight paths.: 6 A voyage from Tahiti, the Tuamotus or the Cook Islands to New Zealand might have followed the migration of the long-tailed cuckoo (Eudynamys taitensis), just as a voyage from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi would coincide with the track of the Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva) and the bristle-thighed curlew (Numenius tahitiensis).

Why are Polynesians so big?

Houghton hypothesized that the heavy body-build of the Polynesians was the result of adaptation to cold conditions. Although most of the Polynesian islands are within the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean, the climate is windy and the sensory temperature is low.

Big feet in Polynesia: a somatometric study of the Tongans.

Keywords: Tonga, Polynesians, foot measurements, hand measurements.

View “Advance Publication” version (January 28, 2006).

Why are Polynesians so big and strong?

Houghton hypothesized that the heavy body-build of the Polynesians was the result of adaptation to cold conditions. Although most of the Polynesian islands are within the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean, the climate is windy and the sensory temperature is low.

Big feet in Polynesia: a somatometric study of the Tongans.

Keywords: Tonga, Polynesians, foot measurements, hand measurements.

View “Advance Publication” version (January 28, 2006).

How advanced were the Polynesians?

There are multiple hypotheses regarding the ultimate origin and mode of dispersal of the Austronesian peoples, but the most widely accepted theory is that modern Austronesians originated from migrations out of Taiwan between 3000 and 1000 BC. Using relatively advanced maritime innovations such as the catamaran, outrigger boats, and crab claw sails, they rapidly colonized the islands of both the Indian and Pacific oceans. They were the first humans to cross vast distances of water on ocean-going boats. Despite the popularity of rejected hypotheses, such as Thor Heyerdahl’s belief that Polynesians are descendants of “bearded white men” who sailed on primitive rafts from South America, Polynesians are believed to have originated from a branch of the Austronesian migrations in Island Melanesia.

The direct ancestors of the Polynesians are believed to be the Neolithic Lapita culture. This group emerged in Island Melanesia and Micronesia around 1500 BC from a convergence of Austronesian migration waves, originating from both Island Southeast Asia to the west and an earlier Austronesian migration to Micronesia to the north. The culture was distinguished by dentate-stamped pottery. However, their eastward expansion halted when they reached the western Polynesian islands of Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga by around 900 BC. This remained the furthest extent of the Austronesian expansion in the Pacific for approximately 1,500 years, during which the Lapita culture in these islands abruptly lost the technology of pottery-making for unknown reasons. They resumed their eastward migrations around 700 AD, spreading to the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and the Marquesas. From here, they expanded further to Hawaii by 900 AD, Easter Island by 1000 AD, and finally New Zealand by 1200 AD.

Analysis by Kayser et al. found that only 21% of the Polynesian autosomal gene pool is of Australo-Melanesian origin, with the remaining 79% being of Austronesian origin. Another study by Friedlaender et al. also confirmed that some Polynesians are genetically closer to Micronesians, Taiwanese Aborigines, and Islander Southeast Asians. The study concluded that Polynesians moved through Melanesia fairly rapidly, allowing only limited admixture between Austronesians and Papuans. Polynesians predominantly belong to Haplogroup B (mtDNA), particularly to mtDNA B4a1a1 (the Polynesian motif). The high frequencies of mtDNA B4 in Polynesians are the result of genetic drift and represent the descendants of a few Austronesian females who mixed with Papuan males. The Polynesian population experienced a founder effect and genetic drift due to the small number of ancestors. As a result of the founder effect, Polynesians are distinctively different both genotypically and phenotypically from the parent population, due to the establishment of a new population by a very small number of individuals from a larger population, which also causes a loss of genetic variation.

How did Polynesians sail against the wind?

The Polynesians would probably have needed fixed-mast canoes to sail against the wind, which there is no evidence of, says Ian Goodwin from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Instead, his research suggests that these pioneering sailors might have had the winds in their favour after all.

“All previous research that’s been done trying to understand this very rapid colonisation of the Pacific tried to grapple with the migration in terms of modern climate,” says Goodwin, who teamed up with anthropologist Atholl Anderson from the Australian National University in Canberra.

They wanted to see whether wind patterns could help explain the migrations. Using evidence from tree rings, lake sediments and ice cores, they tried to reconstruct ancient climates. Their work showed that, for a couple of centuries, a unique set of wind changes would have made these journeys easier.

How far could the Polynesians sail?

In the 1970s the Polynesian Voyaging Society built and launched a Polynesian voyaging canoe with the intention of sailing it from Hawai‘i to Tahiti using only traditional techniques. The canoe, christened Hōkūle‘a, was piloted by Mau Piailug, a navigator from the Caroline Islands. The goal of the project was to show that, although no such voyage had been made for hundreds of years, ancient Polynesian voyagers had been able to navigate distances of more than 2,500 miles using nothing more than their knowledge of the wind, sea, and stars.

On May 1, 1976, the Hōkūle’a set sail from the island of Maui. Just before their departure, Mau addressed the crew, telling them how to behave while they were at sea. “Before we leave,” he told them, “throw away all the things that are worrying you. Leave all your problems on land.” On the ocean, he said, “everything we do is different.” At all times, the crew would be under the captain’s command: “When he says eat, we eat. When he says drink, we drink.” For three, maybe four weeks, they would be out of sight of land. “All we have to survive on are the things we bring with us…. Remember, all of you, these things,” he concluded, “and we will see that place we are going to.”

On board, in addition to Captain Kapahulehua and Mau, were Ben Finney, whose job it was to document the voyage, and David Lewis, who would make a record of Mau’s navigation. Tommy Holmes sailed as a member of the crew, with the particular charge of looking after the animals—a pig, a dog, and “the proper moa” (a chicken)— along with a variety of roots, cuttings, and seedlings, wrapped in damp moss, matting, and tapa cloth to protect them from the sea. Accompanying the canoe in case of trouble, and to keep the detailed record of their position that would later be compared with Mau’s daily estimates, was the sixty-four-foot ketch Meotai.

Were the Polynesians the most accomplished sailors?

Either way, the fact that these islanders could successfully navigate across the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of years before “modern” cultures would even “discover” America, is reason enough to consider Polynesians the greatest navigators on Earth.

Celestial Navigation and Wayfinding. Perhaps what’s more fascinating than the journeys themselves, is just how the Polynesians got there.

When sailing out on the open seas in their dugout voyaging canoes, Polynesians would navigate by using the stars and all of the elements around them. In addition to following the path of the stars, navigators would use the currents and wave patterns to determine their direction and heading.

How did the Polynesians sail so far?

Double-Hulled Canoes Accelerate Expansion. During the long pause, a distinct Polynesian culture evolved on Tonga and Samoa, and voyagers there gradually honed their craft. In time, they invented double-hulled canoes, essentially early catamarans, lashing them together with coconut fiber rope and weaving sails from the leaves of pandanus trees. These vessels, up to roughly 60-feet long, could carry a couple dozen settlers each, along with their livestock—namely pigs, dogs and chickens—and crops for planting.

“They now had the technological ability and the navigational ability to really get out there,” Kirch says.

Though the exact timeline has long been disputed, it appears the great wave of Polynesian expansion began around A.D. 900 or 950. Voyagers, also called wayfinders, quickly discovered the Cook Islands, Society Islands (including Tahiti), and Marquesas Islands, and not long after arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. By 1250 or so, when they reached New Zealand, they had explored at least 10 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean and located over 1,000 islands.

Why were the Polynesians so good at sailing?

INTRODUCTION. It has been known for some time that the ancient Polynesians were superb navigators able to find their way over long distances at sea using their intimate knowledge of the sky, the ocean and its wildlife, the weather and the seasons. Their remarkable knowledge of the vast seascapes of Polynesia was exemplified by the chart drawn by the Ra’iatean navigator Tupaia for Cook when they sailed together in 1769 on the Endeavour. The unique collaboration of these famous individuals was, in a sense, repeated 200 years later during voyages by the Polynesian canoe Hōkūle’a, when the Micronesian expert navigator Mau Piailug tutored sailors and scholars including Nainoa Thompson, Ben Finney and David Lewis in the arts of indigenous navigation (Finney, 1994).

A vital question that remains is to determine how well ancient canoes could sail. A conventional view is that they were weatherly – able to sail at 75° to the true wind angle (TWA) and capable of sailing at moderate speeds in suitable weather (Finney, 2008; Irwin, 1992; Irwin & Flay, 2015). However, in 2000 and subsequently Atholl Anderson has argued that their sailing capability has been exaggerated (Anderson, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2017). Two important questions are at issue: could the canoes really sail against the wind, and could they make moderately fast passages at sea? If they could, then voyages of exploration and planned migrations to known destinations could follow. If they could not, then migration would have more often been one-way with higher loss of life, needing assistance from anomalous winds such as El Niño (Anderson etal., 2006) and shifts in patterns of prevailing winds (Goodwin etal., 2014).

The discovery in recent decades of the archaeological remains of as many as 20 pre-European canoes in New Zealand has been an important breakthrough (Irwin etal., 2017; Johns etal., 2017), and a complete section of a complex and robust composite canoe found at Anaweka on the northwest coast of the South Island gives us the first solid clue as to what early East Polynesian voyaging canoes looked like (Johns etal., 2014). By AD 1400 this large canoe had already been used, repaired, and sailed along the open sea coast, not many generations after the first settlement of New Zealand by numerous named canoes of the Māori migration (Jacomb etal., 2014). The Anaweka waka was unlike any historically-known Māori canoe and it had a carved sea turtle at the waterline that evokes the rich cultural symbolism of tropical Polynesia.