Sex inequality in the Māori population in the prehistoric, proto-historic and early historic Eras in a Trans-Polynesian context

This study considers evidence of Māori sex inequality in life chances during the prehistoric, proto-historic and early historic eras in terms of sex differences in bone size and structure, historic reports of sex dimorphism in height, and early census data of ratios of numbers of males to females. The triangulated evidence suggests significant inequality by sex. This evidence is then placed into a contact era Polynesian context. The broader evidence, also triangulated, suggests that sex inequality amongst Māori was not unique in Polynesia. Nor, however, was inequality universal across Polynesia. There are wide differences in sex inequality in different contact-era Polynesian societies. Sex inequality appears to have been less in Tonga, Samoa and Hawai’i than in New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Easter Island and the Cook Islands. Sex inequality mostly collapsed by the first third of the 20th century, rendering the cross-island comparisons much more homogeneous

Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Ethnology · Geography · Homogeneous · Inequality · Population · Prehistory · Sociology · Demography · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

• The Direct Estimation of Māori Vital Rates for Ruapuke Island, 1844-1845 and 1850-1885

  Simon Chapple•Journal of the Polynesian Society•2014

  Incluir item

• The weight of inquiry

  Roger Openshaw, Elizabeth Rata•International Studies in…•2007

  Incluir item