![polynesian seaturtle polynesian seaturtle](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/ab/65/87ab656c3cd63bc80f4cf4a82642999c.jpg)
Caulking made of the inner part of the outer bark would impart inbuilt age in the order of decades, as opposed to centuries if the outer surface was used. Downes ( 32) and Best ( 16) both documented inner bark selection for manufacture of cultural items as it formed a pliable, waterproof sheet. Simpson also advised that the older outer bark is porous, brittle, light-weight, and flammable. However, he also noted that the inner zone of the outer bark (external to the dense leather-like inner bark) is softer, easily divided, and folds readily without cracking, making it more suitable for recaulking a canoe.
![polynesian seaturtle polynesian seaturtle](https://outdoorhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Hawaiian-green-sea-turtle-at-Molokini-Crater.jpg)
Simpson ( 31) notes that it would be possible for outer totara bark to be hundreds of years old. Another anomalous date for totara bark has been reported for a site in Takahe Valley ( 29, 30). Inbuilt age has been reported for two dates from sites at Puwera, where old totara bark was used for roofing ( 28). We are mindful of the possibility of inbuilt age when using totara bark for dating because of the considerable lifespan of totara trees and its slow -growing bark.
![polynesian seaturtle polynesian seaturtle](https://www.oahuscubadiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC08010-Version-2.jpg)
![polynesian seaturtle polynesian seaturtle](http://www.theworldisabook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Hawaiian-sea-turtle.jpg)
We note that some aspects of canoe design, such as outrigger attachment, have been described in great detail ( 6), but ethnohistoric descriptions of internal structure remain sparse. Interestingly, smaller carved ribs are present in traditional canoes from the Southern Cook Islands in the collections of the Auckland Museum and the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. Integral ribs of this kind are unknown historically in New Zealand but were reported in the Southern Cook Islands by a British official, Major Large, to Elsdon Best in 1913 ( 17). The ribs average about 17-cm wide and 6-cm deep where they meet the stringer. The ribs are tapered from the stringer toward both sides of the piece but are heavier on the side with the curved profile, suggesting that was the lower side in the canoe. Striking features of the hull are four transverse ribs carved at intervals along the hull, and a straight longitudinal stringer or girder runs from the rib by the butt end along the length of the hull. The Anaweka waka also relates to oral traditions about the voyages of named canoes and individuals ( 12) and must be regarded as one ancestral form from which Maori canoes of the historic period developed. It is interpreted as part of an ocean-going sailing canoe and, together with the remains of a canoe previously discovered over 30 y ago on Huahine in the Society Islands ( 11), provides insights into East Polynesian maritime technology. The Anaweka waka (canoe) is one of only two conserved archaeological canoes dated to an early period ( 9, 10). Until now, reconstructions of the canoes used have been based mainly on much later observations from European explorers and ethnohistory ( 6, 7) supported by linguistic reconstructions of a vocabulary of canoe parts from ancestral Austronesian languages ( 8). The canoes available at the time were able to support an extensive and rapid episode of maritime migration ( 2), and there is evidence for long-distance interisland voyaging after settlement ( 3– 5). A review of radiocarbon dates for East Polynesian colonization indicates that a period of settlement in a central group was followed by dispersal to the remaining uninhabited islands, which continued into the 13th century A.D.