terra australis 29 Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia — lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. List of volumes in Terra Australis Volume 1: Burrill Lake and Currarong: Coastal Sites in Southern New South Wales. R.J. Lampert (1971) Volume 2: Ol Tumbuna: Archaeological Excavations in the Eastern Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. J.P. White (1972) Volume 3: New Guinea Stone Age Trade: The Geography and Ecology of Traffic in the Interior. I. Hughes (1977) Volume 4: Recent Prehistory in Southeast Papua. B. Egloff (1979) Volume 5: The Great Kartan Mystery. R. Lampert (1981) Volume 6: Early Man in North Queensland: Art and Archaeology in the Laura Area. A. Rosenfeld, D. Horton and J. Winter (1981) Volume 7: The Alligator Rivers: Prehistory and Ecology in Western Arnhem Land. C. Schrire (1982) Volume 8: Hunter Hill, Hunter Island: Archaeological Investigations of a Prehistoric Tasmanian Site. S. Bowdler (1984) Volume 9: Coastal South-West Tasmania: The Prehistory of Louisa Bay and Maatsuyker Island. R. Vanderwal and D. Horton (1984) Volume 10: The Emergence of Mailu. G. Irwin (1985) Volume 11: Archaeology in Eastern Timor, 1966–67. I. Glover (1986) Volume 12: Early Tongan Prehistory: The Lapita Period on Tongatapu and its Relationships. J. Poulsen (1987) Volume 13: Coobool Creek. P. Brown (1989) Volume 14: 30,000 Years of Aboriginal Occupation: Kimberley, North-West Australia. S. O’Connor (1999) Volume 15: Lapita Interaction. G. Summerhayes (2000) Volume 16: The Prehistory of Buka: A Stepping Stone Island in the Northern Solomons. S. Wickler (2001) Volume 17: The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania. G.R. Clark, A.J. Anderson and T. Vunidilo (2001) Volume 18: An Archaeology of West Polynesian Prehistory. A. Smith (2002) Volume 19: Phytolith and Starch Research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian Regions: The State of the Art. D. Hart and L. Wallis (2003) Volume 20: The Sea People: Late-Holocene Maritime Specialisation in the Whitsunday Islands, Central Queensland. B. Barker (2004) Volume 21: What’s Changing: Population Size or Land-Use Patterns? The Archaeology of Upper Mangrove Creek, Sydney Basin. V. Attenbrow (2004) Volume 22: The Archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia. S. O’Connor, M. Spriggs and P. Veth (2005) Volume 23: Pieces of the Vanuatu Puzzle: Archaeology of the North, South and Centre. S. Bedford (2006) Volume 24: Coastal Themes: An Archaeology of the Southern Curtis Coast, Quuensland. S. Ulm (2006) Volume 25: Lithics in the Land of the Lightning Brothers: The Archaeology of Wardaman Country, Northern Territory. C. Clarkson (2007) Volume 26: Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement. Stuart Bedford, Christophe Sand and Sean P. Connaughton (2007) Volume 27: Dreamtime Superhighway: Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange, Jo McDonald (2008) Volume 28 : New Directions in Archaeological Science, edited by Andrew Fairbairn and Sue O’Connor terra australis 29 ISLANDS OF INQUIRY Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes Edited by Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach and Sue O'Connor © 2008 ANU E Press Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Email: [email protected] Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Islands of inquiry : colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes / editors: Sue O'Connor, Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach. ISBN: 9781921313899 (pbk.) 9781921313905 (PDF) Series: Terra Australis ; 29 Notes: Bibliography. Subjects: Coastal archaeology. Coastal settlements--History. Island archaeology. Underwater archaeology. Other Authors/Contributors: O'Connor, Sue. Clark, Geoffrey R. (Geoffrey Richard), 1966- Leach, B. Foss (Bryan Foss), 1942- Dewey Number: 930.109146 Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2008. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Series Editor: Sue O’Connor Typesetting and design: Rachel Lawson Cover photograph: Palau rock island. Photograph by David Sanger. Gettyimages 200514730-001. Back cover map: Hollandia Nova. Thevenot 1663 by courtesy of the National Library of Australia. Reprinted with permission of the National Library of Australia. Terra Australis Editorial Board: Sue O'Connor, Jack Golson, Simon Haberle, Sally Brockwell, Geoffrey Clark Papers in honour of Atholl Anderson ‘Aye,’ said the Captain, reverentially; ‘it’s a almighty element. There’s wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark,’ said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, ‘as you can’t see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end,’ Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (1848:252). Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard terra australis 29 Preface The impetus for this volume is the pending retirement of Professor Atholl Anderson from the Department of Archaeology and Natural History in the Australian National University in June 2008, after a distinguished and brilliant career in academic archaeology. In geographic range, Atholl’s field research has extended over large swathes of the Pacific Ocean, from the west coast of South America to Western Micronesia, to Island Southeast Asia, and west to the Indian Ocean. Few prehistorians of Oceania have seen as much of their subject matter at such close quarters. The variety and span of his study areas are matched, and quite possibly exceeded, by the prodigious variety of subjects he has tackled in numerous scientific publications, which are outlined by Foss Leach in Chapter 1. As a colleague, mentor and friend to fellow archaeologists, Atholl has been hugely influential in the development of archaeology in Australasia and further afield, and his intense interest in prehistory has been propelled by both a love of history and a desire to see the past with fresh eyes – even if that means upsetting long-established and often cherished conceptual frameworks in the process. This bent for revisionism aimed squarely at improving the historical realism of the discipline has led him to engage with new scientific techniques and theoretical orientations, along with instituting field projects in remote places to recover the essential data. Such an unusually high level of intellectual enthusiasm recalls Samuel Johnson’s comment about the prolific Edmund Burke that: ‘His stream of mind is perpetual’, and throughout his career, numerous prehistorians have benefited from Atholl’s generous sharing of ideas, information and contacts. In putting together this volume, our aim was to honour Atholl’s contribution to archaeology by soliciting papers on subjects which have been at the core of his research endeavours over several decades. The titleIslands of Inquiry: Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes reflects Atholl’s abiding intellectual interest and fascination with the way people reached, occupied and transformed diverse, and often extreme, insular environments. Both ‘colonisation’ and ‘seafaring’ are well-established themes in island archaeology, but the concept of ‘maritime landscapes’ might at first glance appear incongruous. However, island peoples, in the past as well as in the present, have a strong and visceral connection with the seas and oceans in which they live. Maritime influences, whether they be situated in subsistence, trade or ritual domains, permeate the social life of island communities, and are amenable to archaeological study. Thus, a major aim of the volume is to highlight the importance of an archaeologically informed history of landmasses in the oceans and seas of the world. terra australis 29 Contributors were asked to write on a relevant theme, and to eschew valediction and sentiment in favour of scholarly writing. All papers were refereed and we are grateful to the authors for their participation, and the referees and the manuscript reader, Professor Tim Murray. We also thank Lorena Kanellopoulos, Duncan Beard, Laticia Wedhorn and Rachel Lawson for their generous help with volume production. Publication was possible with financial assistance from the Department of Archaeology and Natural History and the College of Asia and the Pacific (ANU). Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach and Sue O’Connor terra australis 29 Contents Introduction 1. Atholl John Anderson: No ordinary archaeologist Foss Leach 1 Modelling seafaring and colonisation 2. Getting from Sunda to Sahul Jim Allen and James F. O’Connell 31 3. Seafaring simulations and the origin of prehistoric settlers to Madagascar Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Richard Callaghan 47 4. Friction zones in Lapita colonisation Geoffrey Clark and Stuart Bedford 59 5. Flights of fancy: Fractal geometry, the Lapita dispersal and punctuated colonisation in the Pacific Ian Lilley 75 6. Demographic expansion, despotism and the colonisation of East and South Polynesia Douglas J. Kennett and Bruce Winterhalder 87 7.