13 ms·

New research shows Māori adapted quickly in the face of rapid climate change

54 points by Hooke 4y ago

ispo 4y ago
Is there evidence of other cases where there was no such adaptive behaviour in other human groups? I study adaptation to shocks in modern societies and I am ashamed to admit we have no clue why it does not work.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  I mean, there's North Sentinel island...
  - ispo 4y ago
    Sorry that I don't know about this case, please can you specify what do you mean exactly?
    - clarionbell 4y ago
      Self isolation in extreme. Nobody knows for sure what language they speak, what they call themselves, nothing. We don't even know how many there are. What we do know is that they survived on a rather small island in Indian ocean with stone age technology for ... well we don't know because they don't want to talk to us. But they did get trough 2004 tsunami just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
- wahern 4y ago
  I imagine there are important definitional aspects that come into play. When the article says, > Models developed from radiocarbon dates and the distribution of archaeological sites indicate the population shifted back to the north and grew between 1350 and 1450. In the north, soils were ideal for agriculture and temperatures were warmer. does that mean that people literally migrated, or merely that the northern population grew predominately through, e.g., a greater reproductive rate while the southern shrank in-place according to similar dynamics? If the latter, is that actually adaptation in the sense you mean?
  - ispo 4y ago
    Not really, adaptation in my context means changes in what you do, so that you cope better with a new stressor. Migration as adaptation is really less interesting for me, while learning new practices, tools and even management styles without migrating means higher levels of adaptive behaviour.
    - wahern 4y ago
      I figured as much. My point is that nothing in the paper abstract (I cannot access the actual paper) seems to necessarily imply adaptation as I assume you mean it, notwithstanding that that is the terminology the authors choose to use. Rather, the adaptation seems more like a semantic sleight of hand--if you look at each population in isolation, each responded as you might expect if there were no abrupt, substantial cultural changes. The southern population, which more heavily relied on hunting and lived in an environment where they could not easily shift to agriculture, declined; whereas the northern culture happened to live in an environment and with habits that benefited from the climate shift. But if you arbitrarily (from the perspective of aliens looking down from space) draw a circle around both populations, call them "Maori", and analyze relative changes in population over a specific window of time, you can elect to discern adaptation within that collective population. You could just as well draw a circle around all of human civilization and write about how supremely adaptive humans are. Or you could draw a narrower circle around just that southern population and tell a story about how hopelessly rigid human cultures can be even in the face of impending doom. Maybe the actual paper has some substance capable of supporting a more concrete claim of extraordinary adaptation (i.e. beyond what we typically see in human populations), but if so it's not apparent from the abstract.
      - ispo 4y ago
        I read the original article here [1] but really adaptation is not the main point of it. Therefore the "conversation" materials are misleading in title, still they triggered this discussion, which is more interesting than both, thanks! [1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207609119 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207609119
inreverse 4y ago
It feels like they're implying rapid climate change killed the moas in less than 200 years, coincidentally right after human arrival. Nothing to do with being hunted to extinction? Strange article.
- musk_micropenis 4y ago
  As a kiwi let me tell you, there's a lot of revisionist history happening with regards to Maori in progressive circles. theconversation.com is a VERY progressive publication.
  - northwest65 4y ago
    That's a polite way of putting it.
  - Gareth321 4y ago
    It's absolutely bizarre. I've got a friend working in healthcare in New Zealand and she was given a mandatory class which taught that "Western science" is "imperialist" and that Maori traditional knowledge is "just as valid." For reference, Maori traditional knowledge is stuff like ghosts (taniwha) and spiritual energy (mana). It's like they're taking the noble savage trope to the craziest ends and just running with it; public outcomes be damned. Some really unhinged ideologues are in positions of power right now.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Taniwha aren't ghosts, and mana isn't spiritual energy, you've got it confused with mana in computer games. At least go on Wikipedia for five minutes on this stuff, eh?
      - tux2bsd 4y ago
        Taniwha can be considereed ghosts, in that they are creatures from stories - a leprechaun could be considered a ghost for the same reason.
pmontra 4y ago
Migrations from too hot areas to warm or cold ones is what is going to happen. But moving to an empty area is different from moving to a heavily populated one. Moving thousands of people is different than moving maybe billions. It's not going to be easy and probably not cooperative. And that will be probably happening together with sea level rising and the resulting destruction / relocation of infrastructure. Very interesting times, much more than now.
- Out_of_Characte 4y ago
  you are overestimating the damage caused by higher sea level and severely underestimating the damage caused by moving the freshwater saltwater line. I live in the Netherlands where we're basacally set up for sea level rises and severe storms that could happen once every 10000 years. so we have plenty of margin. But the movenement of the freshwater/saltwater line is something we cannot control and it has severe impacts on fishing and the ecosystem now.
  - pmontra 4y ago
    Agreed. Maybe my use of infrastructure is improprer. I meant it to encompass farmland. We had problems with the salt wedge underground when the Po river had not enough water this summer, the sea entered the river mouth for kilometers and farmers couldn't pump fresh water from underground because it got salty.
noobermin 4y ago
This is kind of surprising, I am a Palauan, and people from what anthropologists know settled Palau from Southeast Asia around 1000 BC, so I sort of assumed the pacific was settled well before the common era. I never imagined an island settlement so recent, literally within written history at least from a European perspective.
- zardo 4y ago
  Settling deep into the Pacific required pretty advanced sailing technology. Hawaii was only settled in ~1100 CE. I don't think anyone else managed to build a ship that could sail within 50 degrees of the wind direction untill the 1600's.
EdwardDiego 4y ago
This is bizarre. Yes, archaic Māori population density shifted from the South Island to the North following the (close enough) extinction of the moa. (And the people who would become the Moriori migrated from the South Island to the Chathams) But this isn't surprising, the crops they brought with them from Hawaiki grew better in the North Island, so when the moa population collapsed (entirely due to hunting) it makes sense that population density would shift from the areas good for moa to the areas good for agriculture. There's no evidence that I've ever seen that ties the extinction of moa to the Little Ice Age.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

54 points by Hooke 4y ago

ispo 4y ago

Is there evidence of other cases where there was no such adaptive behaviour in other human groups? I study adaptation to shocks in modern societies and I am ashamed to admit we have no clue why it does not work.

TheRealPomax 4y ago
I mean, there's North Sentinel island...
- ispo 4y ago
  Sorry that I don't know about this case, please can you specify what do you mean exactly?
  - clarionbell 4y ago
    Self isolation in extreme. Nobody knows for sure what language they speak, what they call themselves, nothing. We don't even know how many there are. What we do know is that they survived on a rather small island in Indian ocean with stone age technology for ... well we don't know because they don't want to talk to us. But they did get trough 2004 tsunami just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
wahern 4y ago
I imagine there are important definitional aspects that come into play. When the article says, > Models developed from radiocarbon dates and the distribution of archaeological sites indicate the population shifted back to the north and grew between 1350 and 1450. In the north, soils were ideal for agriculture and temperatures were warmer. does that mean that people literally migrated, or merely that the northern population grew predominately through, e.g., a greater reproductive rate while the southern shrank in-place according to similar dynamics? If the latter, is that actually adaptation in the sense you mean?
- ispo 4y ago
  Not really, adaptation in my context means changes in what you do, so that you cope better with a new stressor. Migration as adaptation is really less interesting for me, while learning new practices, tools and even management styles without migrating means higher levels of adaptive behaviour.
  - wahern 4y ago
    I figured as much. My point is that nothing in the paper abstract (I cannot access the actual paper) seems to necessarily imply adaptation as I assume you mean it, notwithstanding that that is the terminology the authors choose to use. Rather, the adaptation seems more like a semantic sleight of hand--if you look at each population in isolation, each responded as you might expect if there were no abrupt, substantial cultural changes. The southern population, which more heavily relied on hunting and lived in an environment where they could not easily shift to agriculture, declined; whereas the northern culture happened to live in an environment and with habits that benefited from the climate shift. But if you arbitrarily (from the perspective of aliens looking down from space) draw a circle around both populations, call them "Maori", and analyze relative changes in population over a specific window of time, you can elect to discern adaptation within that collective population. You could just as well draw a circle around all of human civilization and write about how supremely adaptive humans are. Or you could draw a narrower circle around just that southern population and tell a story about how hopelessly rigid human cultures can be even in the face of impending doom. Maybe the actual paper has some substance capable of supporting a more concrete claim of extraordinary adaptation (i.e. beyond what we typically see in human populations), but if so it's not apparent from the abstract.
    - ispo 4y ago
      I read the original article here [1] but really adaptation is not the main point of it. Therefore the "conversation" materials are misleading in title, still they triggered this discussion, which is more interesting than both, thanks! [1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207609119 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207609119

inreverse 4y ago

It feels like they're implying rapid climate change killed the moas in less than 200 years, coincidentally right after human arrival. Nothing to do with being hunted to extinction? Strange article.

musk_micropenis 4y ago
As a kiwi let me tell you, there's a lot of revisionist history happening with regards to Maori in progressive circles. theconversation.com is a VERY progressive publication.
- northwest65 4y ago
  That's a polite way of putting it.
- Gareth321 4y ago
  It's absolutely bizarre. I've got a friend working in healthcare in New Zealand and she was given a mandatory class which taught that "Western science" is "imperialist" and that Maori traditional knowledge is "just as valid." For reference, Maori traditional knowledge is stuff like ghosts (taniwha) and spiritual energy (mana). It's like they're taking the noble savage trope to the craziest ends and just running with it; public outcomes be damned. Some really unhinged ideologues are in positions of power right now.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    Taniwha aren't ghosts, and mana isn't spiritual energy, you've got it confused with mana in computer games. At least go on Wikipedia for five minutes on this stuff, eh?
    - tux2bsd 4y ago
      Taniwha can be considereed ghosts, in that they are creatures from stories - a leprechaun could be considered a ghost for the same reason.

pmontra 4y ago

Migrations from too hot areas to warm or cold ones is what is going to happen. But moving to an empty area is different from moving to a heavily populated one. Moving thousands of people is different than moving maybe billions. It's not going to be easy and probably not cooperative. And that will be probably happening together with sea level rising and the resulting destruction / relocation of infrastructure. Very interesting times, much more than now.

Out_of_Characte 4y ago
you are overestimating the damage caused by higher sea level and severely underestimating the damage caused by moving the freshwater saltwater line. I live in the Netherlands where we're basacally set up for sea level rises and severe storms that could happen once every 10000 years. so we have plenty of margin. But the movenement of the freshwater/saltwater line is something we cannot control and it has severe impacts on fishing and the ecosystem now.
- pmontra 4y ago
  Agreed. Maybe my use of infrastructure is improprer. I meant it to encompass farmland. We had problems with the salt wedge underground when the Po river had not enough water this summer, the sea entered the river mouth for kilometers and farmers couldn't pump fresh water from underground because it got salty.

noobermin 4y ago

This is kind of surprising, I am a Palauan, and people from what anthropologists know settled Palau from Southeast Asia around 1000 BC, so I sort of assumed the pacific was settled well before the common era. I never imagined an island settlement so recent, literally within written history at least from a European perspective.

zardo 4y ago
Settling deep into the Pacific required pretty advanced sailing technology. Hawaii was only settled in ~1100 CE. I don't think anyone else managed to build a ship that could sail within 50 degrees of the wind direction untill the 1600's.

EdwardDiego 4y ago

This is bizarre. Yes, archaic Māori population density shifted from the South Island to the North following the (close enough) extinction of the moa. (And the people who would become the Moriori migrated from the South Island to the Chathams) But this isn't surprising, the crops they brought with them from Hawaiki grew better in the North Island, so when the moa population collapsed (entirely due to hunting) it makes sense that population density would shift from the areas good for moa to the areas good for agriculture. There's no evidence that I've ever seen that ties the extinction of moa to the Little Ice Age.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]