All Polynesians trace their ancestry to a small band of colonists who made their way to the region from continental Eurasia. This implies that the Polynesian islands were colonised around the same time, hence there wasn't any particular island that had a head start in terms duration of human occupation.
Islands that had climate and soil suitable for agriculture were able to sustain high population density, which in turn led to complex social hierarchies and specialist craftsmen such as soldiers, builders, bureaucrats and chiefs who did not participate in food production. These claims are proven by historical records and journals whether from indigenous historians, artifacts or logs of European explorers who came and recorded their experiences.
The clearest examples of the kind of variation in the complexity of human society that established itself in Polynesia were the Hawaiian islands, the southern part of New Zealand's Southern Island as well as the subantarctic region where Chatham Island is located.
From the Polynesian islands, we can conclude that the factors mentioned above:
- climate
- geological type
- marine resources
- area
- terrain fragmentation
- isolation
are probably responsible for the even greater variation that we observe in the world at large.
I think this chapter is absolutely fascinating. I think there isn't a person who wouldn't agree that environmental conditions play a large part in determining the development of the human race. Its so simple and yet such a powerful explanation I'm compelled to question why we never thought of it sooner. I guess it says something about human ignorance or arrogance that the idea that Europeans were more 'evolved' was given so much credit in colonial times even though an equally if not more plausible explanation was staring you quite literally in the face in the form of the surrounding environment.
