Hostile Shores
Subtitle: Catastrophic Events in Prehistoric New Zealand and Their Impact on Maori Coastal Communities
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: April 1, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 312
ISBN-13: 9781869403904
Subjects: Australasian & Pacific archaeology; Australasian & Pacific history: BCE to c 1750 CE; Indigenous peoples; History; History - General History; History: World; New Zealand; Australia & New Zealand - General; History / Australia & Oceania
Description: "The Polynesian settlers of New Zealand arrived to a land prone to violent geological disruption by large earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. In Hostile Shores, Bruce McFadgen has written a study of the effects of these catastrophic events on the New Zealand coastal landscape and its people from the time of first Polynesian settlement until European contact in the eighteenth century. Evidence from the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, demography, geology, history, volcanology and Maori oral tradition combine to offer a unique analysis. In particular, McFadgen describes how the 'big crunch' of the fifteenth century, with its increased tsunami activity, was hugely detrimental to coastal communities and precipitated a crisis that led to cultural change and warfare. Hostile Shores will be interesting reading for coastal planners, local authorities, surveyors and engineers, anthropologists, archaeologists - and anyone living within 300 metres of the shoreline of New Zealand."--Jacket.