This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wilmshurstl, J. M. Articles by Higham, T. F.G. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Using rat-gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans in New Zealand

Landcare Research, PO Box 69, Lincoln 8152, New Zealand, wilmshurstj{at}landcareresearch.co.nz

Thomas F.G. Higham

Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, 6 Keble Road, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QJ, UK

The Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) was transported throughout the south Pacific with voyaging humans. Thus, the earliest dated evidence of Pacific rat can be used to infer first human contact. Until recently, it was considered that rats arrived in New Zealand with humans in the thirteenth century AD. However, controversial radiocarbon dates on Pacific rat bones now suggest that rats reached the remote islands of New Zealand with people c. AD 50-150. These dates are anomalous because they imply human contact with New Zealand more than 1000 years before any archaeological evidence for human presence, and precede settlement of tropical eastern Polynesia, the ancestral homeland of Maori, the first New Zealanders. The early rat bone dates are controversial for other technical reasons, which have been debated in the literature. Here, distinctive rat-gnawed seed cases preserved in sediments are used as a proxy to independently date the arrival of the Pacific rat and humans in New Zealand. This method effectively bypasses the problems that have plagued rat bone dating and provides a reliable age for rat and human arrival. The oldest dates on rat-gnawed seed cases from widely separated sites are consistent with the Pacific rat arriving at the same time as the initial human settlement of New Zealand in the thirteenth century AD, and not before. The gnawed seed dates lend no support to the argument for an earlier introduction of rats. This dating approach offers a novel way of clarifying island colonization histories throughout Oceania.

Key Words: AMS • radiocarbon dating • Rattus exulans • Pacific rat • New Zealand • seeds • human contact

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. M. Wilmshurst, A. J. Anderson, T. F. G. Higham, and T. H. Worthy Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat PNAS, June 3, 2008; 105(22): 7676 - 7680. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. Gomez, L. Carter, and N. A. Trustrum A 2400 yr record of natural events and anthropogenic impacts in intercorrelated terrestrial and marine sediment cores: Waipaoa sedimentary system, New Zealand GSA Bulletin, November 1, 2007; 119(11-12): 1415 - 1432. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]