Ethno-Archaeology and the Development of Polynesian Fishing Strategies

Abstract

In Oceania, the component of subsistence is focused primarily upon the sea and its varied resources. This is particularly so in inner or remote Oceania,1 for as one ventures eastward from the larger continental islands of New Guinea and island Melanesia, the indigenous terrestrial flora and fauna become increasingly less numerous. The impov erished land biotas of the Polynesian islands excepting only the avifauna offered but a restricted range of potential foodstuffs. At the same time, however, the coral reef communities, lagoons, and pelagic waters around the tropical Pacific islands support a large number of edible fish, molluscs, crust cea, echinoderms, seaweeds, and the like. We would emphasise further that is as apt a rubric for marine exploitation as it is for the exploitation of a terrestrial biota. Seaweeds and invertebrates are certainly gathered, and anyone who has participated in a Polynesian fishing expedition will realise that fishing is by no means a passive activity; the excitement of the chase is just as fully expressed as among the more often cited land-based hunters. To be sure, there are significant differences between land and sea hunting, these being in large part a reflection of the unique characteristics of the sea buoyancy, turbulence, refraction of light, and the general unsuitedness of man for the marine environment (Hewes 1948). Thus, most of the technological apparatus and behavioural strategies for marine exploitation are unique developments, and not mere transferences of land hunting devices. While terrestrial hunting is almost certainly of a greater antiquity than marine exploitation, the origins of sea hunting-and-gathering clearly extend well into the Pleistocene among people inhabiting the littoral margins of the continents. The ultimate origins of Oceanic fishing strategies doubtless lie in insular South-east Asia, that region of the shadow continents Sunda and Sahul, whose coasts and shorelines shifted so remarkably during the Pleistocene (Jones 1977). Sauer's hypotheses (Sauer 1952) on the origins of coastal South-east Asian adaptations of the interactions of the littoral