Another thing that fills me with awe: in order to populate the Pacific, Polynesians had to let go of one key technology, pottery.

You can't find enough clay on basaltic islands - in fact, none - and even if you could find other materials for ceramics, the flora probably doesn't allow an easy way to heat kilns to appropriate temperatures. Besides, you must use trees for many other purposes (canoes, clothes).

Polynesians populated the Pacific only after they renounced ceramic and pottery. Contrary to vulgar opinion, cultural change, and indeed history, do not necessarily proceed from technological advances.

One of the greatest civilization the world has ever seen – keen astronomers and observers of natural processes, extremely advanced agronomists, artists and navigators – the Polynesians renounced pottery.

It is an extraordinary fact.

Take heed: there are technologies we should renounce if we want to endure and renew ourselves.

(I know one of the counters to this is that subsistence economy is very different – but I wonder how much of that distinction holds under close scrutiny – eg in pre-contact Hawaii a lot of economic activity revolved around procuring rare feathers for ceremonial capes and hats)