Tonga petroglyphs hint at Isle link

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Honolulu Advertiser.com
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser staff writer


Photos by Chas and Shane Egan


Beach erosion on a remote island in Tonga has revealed a trove of petroglyphs that archaeologists say are similar to those found in Hawai'i, hinting at the possibility of early travel between the two archipelagos.


More than 50 petroglyphs were found late last year on several slabs of beach rock at the northern end of Foa Island, in Ha'apai. The rocks apparently were buried for centuries under several feet of sand until heavy seas exposed them.

The carvings were spotted by two Australian visitors who notified Tonga artist and amateur archaeologist Shane Egan, who in turn contacted archaeologist and ethnohistorian David Burley, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Burley has conducted a number of field surveys and excavations in Tonga, which is about 3,000 miles southwest of Hawai'i.

"Initially I was a bit stunned, knowing the distance and difficulty of travel between the two groups of islands," Burley said in an e-mail to The Advertiser. "The evidence, however, is visual and difficult to ignore or explain in ways other than direct contact."

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090302/NEWS23/903020319/-1

A couple more photos at the link

[Chulanowa]

1. Uh... duh?

I was pretty sure that the colonization of Hawai'i from Tonga was already pretty well-known?

[mahina]

5. Well, that might be overstating it...

The cultures and languages are totally and completely different. Tongan is nothing like Hawaiian.

OK!

[mahina]

2. Gee, I thought that was widely known at the museum too. Interesting!!

Thanks for taking interest, that's wonderful.
Some Braddah Iz, rest his soul...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWkKAQxe2mc&feature=related
http://images.google.com/imgres?


imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Mar/10/ln/FP603100356.html&usg=__EnKTSg0oQIkX-of9cupXCHN-ruw=&h=656&w=670&sz=132&hl=en&start=14&tbnid=9mAOrFEYAZGpRM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bof%2Bhawaiian%2Bvoyaging%2Bcanoes%2Btonga%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG
Researchers: east Polynesia settled later

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer


New archaeological discoveries are radically changing our understanding of how the eastern Polynesian islands were settled, pointing to dates that are much more recent than anyone suspected.

The research suggests Hawai'i was part of a kind of regional eastern Polynesian homeland connected by well-traveled voyaging canoe routes and trade patterns. Its members included Hawai'i, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, Aotearoa or New Zealand and other groups.

Two researchers say Hawai'i's initial settlement was probably between 800 A.D. and 1000 A.D.

The earlier settlement theory is "a much better explanation," said Rubellite Kawena Johnson, retired professor of Asian and Pacific Languages at University of Hawai'i and translator of the Hawaiian creation chant, the Kumulipo.

She said Hawaiian traditions of voyages between Hawai'i and the Cook Islands, the Tuamotu atolls and other areas fit well with such a concept.

University of Hawai'i archaeology professor Terry Hunt in yesterday's issue of the journal Science tossed out earlier settlement dates for Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, and announced that the best evidence suggests the remote island was inhabited around 1200 A.D. Previous settlement estimates had been as early as 400 A.D., but Hunt said most of the early radiocarbon dates for the island were flawed for any of several technical reasons.

He conducted an extensive dig at the sand dunes of Anakena, the best canoe-landing spot on the island and traditionally the place the first voyager, Hotu Matua, landed. His team dated charcoal samples and rat-eaten palm nuts at about 1250 A.D. Polynesians are believed to have carried fast-breeding Polynesian rats to virtually every island they inhabited.

DATES IN QUESTION

Renowned Pacific archaeologist Patrick Kirch, of the University of California at Berkeley, said he believes further work will find dates 100 or 200 years earlier on Rapa Nui, but not much earlier than that.

"I think we're close to tying this part of Polynesia down within a couple of hundred years," Kirch said. He has recently been working at Mangareva, "a logical stepping stone" for voyaging to Rapa Nui, and is getting dates in the 1000 A.D. range.

Recent dates for New Zealand are 1200 A.D. or later and about 1000 A.D. for the Marquesas Islands.

Kirch and University of Hawai'i archaeology professor Barry Rolett agree that Hawai'i was probably first settled between 800 and 1000 A.D. — perhaps before the Marquesas.

Veteran Bishop Museum archaeologist Yosi Sinoto, long a proponent of earlier settlement, is uneasy with all the new work.

"Radiocarbon dates are a problem. Recent data are showing younger dates than before, but whether that is right or not, we need to see. I think that more supporting evidence is coming up" that the Marquesas were a cultural center and a source of migrations, he said.

"We have material culture (such as adzes and fishhooks) examples that go from A to B, and B to C. Whether it takes 100 or 500 years to go from A to B can change with dating results, but you can't change the sequence," Sinoto said. "I don't think the migration sequence changes much."

MIGRATION TRACKS

There is little disagreement on the first steps of the Polynesian migration in the Pacific, which brought the Polynesian culture into western Polynesia — Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. There, the islanders paused before new voyaging began, probably from somewhere in Samoa.

Orthodox migration theory holds that voyages from Samoa into eastern Polynesia started 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, but recent archaeology suggests it was more like 1,400 or 1,500 years ago, said David Burley, chairman of archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those petros are saying, clear as day, the Hawaiians were here! :)

[mahina]

3. What else is interesting is that I think the science writer, Jan Tenbruggencate, got laid off.

So this might be in part a lack of having an experienced science writer around.
Among so many other losses journalistically.

[mahina]

4. oh and also too...there are so many words in common between the Maori and Hawaiians,

(the very word 'Maori, or Maoli, included among them) that we can make fair sense out of spoken Maori.

From New Zealand.

So, Yeppers!