Wehi Priscilla M, Cox Murray P, Roa Tom, Whaanga Hēmi
1Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054 New Zealand.
Te Pūnaha Matatini, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, 764 Cumberland St, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin, 9054 New Zealand.
Hum Ecol Interdiscip J. 2018;46(4):461-470. doi: 10.1007/s10745-018-0004-0. Epub 2018 Jun 4.
Human settlement into new regions is typically accompanied by waves of animal extinctions, yet we have limited understanding of how human communities perceived and responded to such ecological crises. The first megafaunal extinctions in New Zealand began just 700 years ago, in contrast to the deep time of continental extinctions. Consequently, indigenous Māori oral tradition includes ancestral sayings that explicitly refer to extinct species. Our linguistic analysis of these sayings shows a strong bias towards critical food species such as moa, and emphasizes that Māori closely observed the fauna and environment. Temporal changes in form and content demonstrate that Māori recognized the loss of important animal resources, and that this loss reverberated culturally centuries later. The data provide evidence that extinction of keystone fauna was important for shaping ecological and social thought in Māori society, and suggest a similar role in other early societies that lived through megafaunal extinction events.
人类向新地区的定居通常伴随着动物灭绝的浪潮，但我们对人类社群如何感知和应对此类生态危机的了解有限。与大陆上漫长时间的物种灭绝相比，新西兰的首次大型动物灭绝始于仅700年前。因此，毛利人的口头传统中包含明确提及已灭绝物种的祖先谚语。我们对这些谚语的语言分析显示，对诸如恐鸟等重要食物物种存在强烈偏好，并强调毛利人密切观察动物和环境。形式和内容的时间变化表明，毛利人认识到重要动物资源的丧失，且这种丧失在数百年后仍在文化层面产生影响。这些数据证明，关键动物的灭绝对于塑造毛利社会的生态和社会思想很重要，并表明在经历大型动物灭绝事件的其他早期社会中也可能发挥了类似作用。
