A good answer to this can be found about three pages into
Chapter 2. The basic idea is that the Chathams were too small to support agriculture.
The Maori remained as agricultural people on New Zealand while the Moriori reverted to
being hunter-gatherers.
The Moriori did this because there
was no real way to farm on the Chathams. The Chathams were relatively small and cold so
they could not support the crops the Maori grew in New Zealand. Because of this, there
could be no food surpluses and no large political organizations. Because of this, the
Moriori developed into a small group of hunter-gatherers who had little technology and
little social organization. This was very different from the Maori who farmed and who
organized themselves into what Diamond calls "proto-empires."
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