Did Polynesia's

Vikings Have Better Sailing Weather?

All authorities on ancient Polynesia are agreed that the

period of the epic voyagings

of the Polynesians was be tween the 10th and the 14th centuries.

THE arrival in New Zealand of the so-called “Fleet” was something of a climax to this era of great maritime endeavour.

There is no substantial record of any canoe departing from Central Polynesia and arriving in New Zealand or any other distant corner of Polynesia after the accepted “Fleet” date of 1350.

And according to the two most quoted traditionalists, Fornander of Hawaii and Percy Smith, of New Zealand, contact between Hawaii and the heart of Polynesia was lost a little earlier—about 1325.

Nothing that scientists have contributed in recent years has questioned these findings. Nor have the scientists satisfactorily explained why the great Poly nesian voyages suddenly ceased, I have a theory that it was due to a change for the worse in the world’s weather pattern, because the voyages of the Polynesians (whom Sir Peter Buck called Vikings of the Sunrise) ended more or less at the same time as those of the Scandinavian Vikings.

The achievements of the Scandinavian Vikings covered roughly the same time span as those of the Polynesians,

Distant Voyages

It was in the ninth century that these wild, rapacious Norsemen began to harry the coasts of Britain and Europe. It was be tween the 10th and 14th centuries that they established and developed their colonies in Iceland and Greenland and were at home upon the broad Atlantic.

And according to a stone with runic carving on it, found in Minnesota, USA, in 1898, it was in 1362 that a party of Swedes and Norwegians, exploring west wards from Vinland, reached that distant spot —more or less at the same time as the Polynesian “Fleet” reached distant New Zealand.

As with the Polynesian voyages, little is heard of the exploits of the Vikings after that date.

Quite a lot of evidence has come to hand in recent years to

By Gordon Russell, formerly meteorologist in the Cook Islands

support the view that the world’s climate was kinder to ocean rovers and celestial navigators in the Viking era than it is now.

For some thousands of years, it appears the world has been getting colder. But the period from 800 to 1200 AD saw a partial reversal of this trend, with a temporary warming up of the climate—the decline setting in again between 1200 and 1400 AD.

In the Northern Hemisphere, evidence of different weather patterns comes both from old manuscripts and archaeological excavations. Today it is accepted that from 800 to 1400 AD, the North Sea and the Atlantic, play ground of the Scandinavian Vik ings, were relatively storm free.

The well-authenticated and tragic story of the extinction of the Viking settlements in Green land is accepted as a tangible sign of the close of this climatic interlude.

Research It would be odd if the Southern Hemisphere had not had a pattern of climate similar to that of the Northern Hemisphere over the same period.

In fact, archaeologists and foresters in New Zealand and else where now speak in such terms and quote 1300 AD as an approxi mate date marking a decline.

A good deal of research is now under way on the subject of world climatic changes.

It could well be that all this will provide even more support for the theory that during the great era of the Polynesian and Viking voyages, the lights in the celestial binnacle did not give much trouble to those who, year in and year out, studied the stars and watched the feathered migrants come and go.