Hostile Shores: Catastrophic Events in Prehistoric New Zealand and Their Impact on Maori Coastal Communities

(Paperback)

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The Maori canoes arrived to a precarious landscape, prone to tectonic upheaval, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity and tsunami. Settlements clustered on the coast were particularly vulnerable to catastrophic events. Bruce McFadgen has written an authoritative, groundbreaking study of the effects fo these catastrophic events on the New Zealand coastal landscape and its people from the time of the first Polynesian settlement until the sixteenth century. Evidence from the disciplines of history, anthropology, archaeology, vulcanology, geology, demography and oral tradition combine to offer a broad picture. In particularly, McFadgen describes how the 'big crunch' of the fifteenth century, with its increased tsunamis, impacted severely on the coastal population and exacerbated many social problems.

Author Bio

BRUCE MCFADGEN is an archaeologist who previously worked for the Department of Conservation and the Historic Places Trust. He received a Stout Fellowship to work on this book.