DOCSLIB.ORG

Book Reviews

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific. Ward Goodenough, ed. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge Vol. 86, Pt. 5. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. 169 pp.; figures, references, index. Reviewed by ATHoLL ANDERSON, Australian National University The papers in this volume are from two tions. On the matter of why these popula­ small symposia on the settlement of the tions should have eventually expanded Pacific, evidently built around a distin­ southward, Chong and Goodenough reject guished lecture by Ben Finney, from which Bellwood's agricultural-demographic hy­ the main article stems. Delivered in 1993, pothesis in favor of an argument about but updated for publication, they are state­ luxury trade. Interesting as this is, however, of-the-art surveys of several of the central and complemented as it is by Pamela themes of Pacific colonization, although in Swadling's recent study, Plumes from Para­ a slightly unexpected combination. There dise (1996, Papua New Guinea National are three papers that deal primarily with Museum), it is difficult to see why Aus­ colonization prehistory in the Pacific: tronesians would expand so far and so fast, Finney's review of island discovery in the with so little sign of the return of pro­ light of experimental voyaging, Jim Allen ducts. Other archaeological examples of on Quaternary settlement of the western expansion in this manner, for example the Pacific and its significance for understand­ eastern Vikings (Rus) , are replete with ing the Lapita phenomenon, and Pat Kirch material evidence in both directions, de­ on the nature of Lapita culture and its spite much of the trade being in perishable distribution. The other articles focus on goods (in the case of the Rus, slaves, silk, the origins and relationships of the Aus­ honey, wax, and so forth). An expanding tronesian language phyla in various ways: Austronesian trading system is a fair propo­ Robert Blust on the cultural inventory of sition, but it remains far from demonstrated early Austronesians, Kwang-Chih Chang by the archaeological evidence. and Ward Goodenough on the archaeology Blust's first paper is a brief and some­ of southeast China and the origins of Aus­ what casual argument for cultural devolu­ tronesian cultures, and Blust again on the tion as Austronesians advanced south and more distant relationships of Austronesian east. It asserts the advantages of compara­ languages in continental Asia. tive linguistics over archaeology for recon­ Taking the latter group first, the Chang structing the cultural inventory of early and Goodenough paper is a data-rich and Austronesian speakers, but it needs to be lucid review of the likely archaeological balanced by the counterargument from correlates in south China and Taiwan of archaeological evidence of innovation in the proto-Austronesian speaking popula- material culture and settlement patterns. Blust's second paper, which looks again at Schimdt's "Austric" and Benedict's Asiall Perspectives, Vol. 37, No.2, © 1998 by University of "Austro-Tai" hypotheses, is situated more Hawai'j Press. 3°2 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES remotely from Pacific prehistory, but it In his paper, Finney reviews the accom­ is a thoughtful analysis of where Proto­ plishments of his project in experimental Austronesian languages evolved-the mid­ archaeology, particularly in the construc­ dle Yangtse valley-as well as their rela­ tion and voyaging of the Hokule 'a. These tionships with other languages of southeast are so extraordinary and have provided Asia that spread down the major river val­ such an impetus to the renewed analysis of leys from a broadly common source. Oceanic voyaging, including by Geoff Turning to the Pacific papers in this Irwin and others, that they need no enco­ volume, Allen reviews his argument for a mium here. In writing about the project, largely indigenous origin of Lapita culture however, Finney does rather gild the lily in western Melanesia. The tide is moving here and there. I doubt very much that against an emphatic statement of this opin­ there is an authentic Maori tradition (that ion, as Allen recognizes, but it does not hurt is, of probable pre-European origin) that to be reminded that much of the content states that the passage from the Cooks or of Lapita culture could have multiple ori­ Tahiti to New Zealand should be started in gins or could have been significantly rear­ early spring. The argument that Nainoa ranged during an Asian sojourn in Island Thompson navigates in a traditional way Melanesia. Clearly many incomers also but for his inability to rid himself of the remained behind. It is worth noting that concepts of miles and degrees is highly du­ the rates of natural increase of island colo­ bious too. From modern maps, Thompson nists can be extraordinarily high, up to 4 knows all about Pacific geography, the dis­ percent per annum, as on Pitcairn Island. position of all the islands, the directions Even at half that figure, a colonizing popu­ and strengths of the winds and currents, lation of 1000 would have exceeded and the sequences of weather systems and 100,000 in little more than two centuries, their likely effect on planned passages. The leaving ample scope both for continuing Hokule 'a team uses satellite images and rapid expansion eastward within the Lapita other meteorological data to plan its voy­ timescale as well as for extensive coloniza­ ages. It is doubtful indeed whether any tion of western Melanesia-the two pro­ prehistoric navigator ever had even a frac­ positions are not contradictory. tion of that background knowledge to go Kirch's paper is a fairly brief but masterly on. Experimental voyaging in the Pacific summary of the prevailing hypothesis of has contributed immensely to current ideas Lapita origins. In this, as in Pacific pre­ and needs no exaggerated estimation of the history generally, descriptive models, in verisimilitude of its procedures. this case Green's Triple I formulation, are All in all, this a worthwhile and stimu­ more prominent than testable explanations lating volume. It is up-to-date, written by about why things happened. I do not find scholars of undoubted standing, and neatly the trade argument entirely convincing, but unobtrusively edited by Goodenough. partly for reasons already alluded to, nor It points to both the achievements of Pa­ propositions about developing maritime cific prehistory in the modern era and the technology or preadaptation of agriculture. continuing areas of difficulty. It will be Why Lapita colonization breached the valued by students of Pacific prehistory as western boundary of remote Oceania, after well as their teachers and it is written suffi­ people had lived so long in such close ciently plainly to be accessible to the inter­ proximity to it, is a matter that eludes us yet. ested general reader. BOOK REVIEWS 3°3 Prehistory oj the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Peter Bellwood. Revised ed. Hono­ lulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. 384 pp.; illustrations, maps, plates, bibli­ ography. Softcover. Reviewed by RICHARD SHUTLER JR., Simon Fraser University Since the first edition of Prehistory of the for mud volcanoes that create lahars (mud Indo-Malaysian Archipelago was published in flows), which mix sediments from different 1985, a significant amount of new research time periods, confusing the stratigraphy. has been reported in many of the areas Third, none of the fossil hominids found considered in this book. This information have a definitely known provenance (per­ provides new insights into the prehistory sonal communication, Geoffrey G. Pope, of the region over the past two million Dec. 4, 1997). I can personally vouch for years. At the same time, some of the the latter, as I have been to Peming twice recently reported data make long-standing and was shown a different location each disputes more controversial. Bellwood time where the Mojokerto skull is sup­ clearly states that the objective of this book posed to have been found. The dating of is to present "a multidisciplinary recon­ Homo erectus in Java is far from resolved. struction of the prehistory of the modern On page 45, Bellwood cites a claim for a nations of Indonesia and Malaysia as hominid mandible and possible stone tools viewed from the perspective of the whole dating to almost two million years at Southeast Asian and Australasian region." Longgupo Cave in Sichuan, China. Again, Chapter 1, "The Environmental Back­ there is a need for caution in accepting this ground: Present and Past," covers the in­ early claim for a hominid in east Asia. Pope fluence of climate, landforms, soils, sea (personal communication) expressed the levels, volcanoes, fauna, and flora over the opinion that the mandible is not of a past two million years. Since 1891, when hominid. It is clear that Bellwood fully Dubois discovered the first bones of Pithe­ understands the implications of the dating canthropus erectus on the Solo river at TriniI, of Homo erectus wherever it is found, when Java, the time of the first arrival of the first he sums up the dating problems saying, hominids in Java has never been clearly "There are big problems of chronology defined, and has remained extremely con­ concerning the radiation of Homo out of troversial. On page 30, Bellwood mentions Africa, and I see no easy resolution at the the recently reported 1.6 million year date moment" (p. 45). for the Pithecanthropus mandible C from In pages 47-49 Bellwood presents a Pucangan at Sangiran, and the argon date well-balanced discussion of the Pucangan of 1.8 million years for the Mojokerto and Kabul hominids of Java. While the skull from the Pucangan deposit at Peming, jury is still out on the exact age of the east Java. If these dates are correct, the Ngandong skeletal material because of entire story of Homo erectus in east Asia as stratigraphic problems, Bellwood sees it as we understand it today will have to be re­ dating somewhere between 40,000 and written.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • And Taewa Māori (Solanum Tuberosum) to Aotearoa/New Zealand
    Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. Traditional Knowledge Systems and Crops: Case Studies on the Introduction of Kūmara (Ipomoea batatas) and Taewa Māori (Solanum tuberosum) to Aotearoa/New Zealand A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of AgriScience in Horticultural Science at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand Rodrigo Estrada de la Cerda 2015 Kūmara and Taewa Māori, Ōhakea, New Zealand i Abstract Kūmara (Ipomoea batatas) and taewa Māori, or Māori potato (Solanum tuberosum), are arguably the most important Māori traditional crops. Over many centuries, Māori have developed a very intimate relationship to kūmara, and later with taewa, in order to ensure the survival of their people. There are extensive examples of traditional knowledge aligned to kūmara and taewa that strengthen the relationship to the people and acknowledge that relationship as central to the human and crop dispersal from different locations, eventually to Aotearoa / New Zealand. This project looked at the diverse knowledge systems that exist relative to the relationship of Māori to these two food crops; kūmara and taewa. A mixed methodology was applied and information gained from diverse sources including scientific publications, literature in Spanish and English, and Andean, Pacific and Māori traditional knowledge. The evidence on the introduction of kūmara to Aotearoa/New Zealand by Māori is indisputable. Mātauranga Māori confirms the association of kūmara as important cargo for the tribes involved, even detailing the purpose for some of the voyages.
    [Show full text]
  • Commentary on "Diffusionists" and Legitimate Aims in Polynesian Prehistory
    Commentary On "Diffusionists" and Legitimate Aims in Polynesian Prehistory Received 6July 1983 PETER BELLWOOD RECENTLY had the rather unpleasant experience ofreading Alan Howard's review (AP 22: 221-228) of The Prehistory of Polynesia, edited by Jesse Jennings. A number of I contributors to this volume, including myself, are described in this review in a seemingly derogatory fashion as "diffusionists;' partly I suspect because our papers have not been centrally concerned with Howard's "game;' i.e. with the relationships between ecology and cultural adaptation in Polynesian prehistory, or, as Howard phrases it, with "the relative contributions of cultural templates and ecological constraints to various social developments." I wish to take issue with Howard's stance on two accounts; the first concerns the correct use ofthe emotion-charged term "diffusionist," and the second concerns Howard's appar­ ent refusal to consider, as valid fields ofconcern for prehistorians, any approaches which do not fall within the rules ofthe above "game;' which he, as a social anthropologist, evi­ dently considers to be "so much damn fun." In connection with the first issue, the term "diffusion;' as used in the archaeological lit­ erature with which I am familiar, refers to a process ofconsiderable conceptual vagueness by which particular cultural traits or trait-combinations spread from one area to another. Usually in the Polynesian archaeological literature these traits emerge as various items of material culture, such as adze types, art styles, crops, domestic animals, and so forth. Such diffusion, in the few cases where it can actually be demonstrated to have occurred (and where inheritance from a common ancestor or local convergent adaptation can be ruled out as explanations for similarities), mayor may not involve human migration, and other nonmigratory processes such as trade or simple voyaging contact between neighboring Peter Bellwood is a member ofthe Department ofPrehistory and Anthropology, School ofGeneral Studies, the Australian National University.
    [Show full text]
  • Pacific Islanders and Amerindian Relatedness According to HLA Autosomal Genes
    44 International Journal of Modern Anthropology Int. J. Mod. Anthrop. (2014) 7: 44 - 67 Available online at: www.ata.org.tn ; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijma.v1i7.2 Original Synthesis Report Pacific Islanders and Amerindian relatedness according to HLA autosomal genes Antonio Arnaiz-Villena1, Cristina Areces1, Mercedes Enríquez-de-Salamanca1, Sedeka Abd-El-Fatah-Khalil2, Javier Marco1, Ester Muñiz1, Mercedes Fernández-Honrado2, Manuel Martín Villa1, Diego Rey1 Antonio Arnaiz-Villena is presently Head of Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Complutense University, Madrid, Spain. He has been as Research Fellow in the Middlesex Hospital and The London Hospital, London, UK for 9 years. He has published more than 350 papers in international magazines and 8 books in Immunology, Immunogenetics and Human and Bird Population Genetics. He has directed 48 PhD theses. E-mail: [email protected]. Web page: http://chopo.pntic.mec.es/biolmol/ 1Departament of Immunology, University Complutense, Madrid Regional Blood Center, Madrid, Spain 2Departament of Haematology, Madrid Regional Blood Center, Madrid, Spain Abstract - Americas peopling has recently been explained based only on genetic data. While different First America inhabitants’ ethnic groups, Amerindians, Na-Dene speakers, Aleuts and Eskimo there exist, there is no either genetic, cultural or anthropological homogeneity within these groups. In the present work, we have particularly addressed the relatedness of First America Inhabitants with Pacific Islanders by using autosomal genetic markers: the HLA alleles. HLA is the most polymorphic human genetic system accounting for 9,438 alleles; this is most useful for comparing populations relatedness. Ethnic groups of Pacific Islanders and First America Inhabitants have been used.
    [Show full text]
  • Terra Australis 26
    terra australis 26 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.
    [Show full text]
  • The Reemergence of Traditional Sailing Canoe
    74496 ;3 9:7 673 9:7 77707797357 48 9736;9;4331 63;1;39 53347 4:;16;39 ;3 9:7 773:41;5 48 9:7 0376:311 ;613366 5:7;69;33 33;73 17:033 6ubmitted to the faculty of the :niversity 9raduate 6chool ;n partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree 0aster of 1iberal 6tudies in the 5ollege of 1iberal 3rts and 6ciences of ;ndiana :niversity -uly $&&(P7$N&( P$*( 3ccepted by the 9raduate 8aculty ;ndiana :niversity in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree in the 0aster of 1iberal 6tudies 016 5ommittee js}6cott 7 6ernau 3h6 @~~ 7ebecca 1 9orstrick 3h6 6ate of 4ral 7xamination -uly 8or the students and teachers preserving the past in the 0arshall ;slands llo 0autiej 3elon 0ein 3d l $&KNOSL('*M(N76 ; wish to acknowledge the kqohikZpkZp lmata 0abua (3aramount 5hief) of the 0arshall ;sland for being so gracious as to allow me to conduct my research among his people and lands ; would also like to thank the dedicated staff at Baan 3elon in 0ajel whose thoughtful work in reviving traditional sailing canoe culture in the 0arshall ;slands has allowed a new generation of 0arshallese to take prjde in their past ;n particular ; wish to acknowledge 6ennis 3lessio 3lson 0elen -ill 1uciano and 0entil 1aik for allowing me access to their work site and publications that B30 has produced 0uch appreciation to :arry 3nien 0aster 5anoe builder who on 0ajikin ;sland 3amo 3toll allowed me to help him in the construction of a traditional sailing canoe and for the use of that boat 3lso to the late 0aster 3avigator 3lton who taught me about traditional
    [Show full text]
  • When Did the Ancestors of Polynesia Begin to Migrate to Polynesia? the Mtdna Evidence
    UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 2009 When did the ancestors of Polynesia begin to migrate to Polynesia? The mtDNA evidence David Lesniewski University of Nevada Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Genetics Commons Repository Citation Lesniewski, David, "When did the ancestors of Polynesia begin to migrate to Polynesia? The mtDNA evidence" (2009). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 83. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/1377307 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHEN DID THE ANCESTORS OF POLYNESIA BEGIN TO MIGRATE TO POLYNESIA? THE mtDNA EVIDENCE by David Lesniewski C (ASCP) cm Bachelor of Science Kent State University 1997 Bachelor of Science Kent State University 2004 Bachelor of Science
    [Show full text]
  • Tracking Austronesian Expansion Into the Pacific Via the Paper Mulberry Plant Elizabeth A
    COMMENTARY Tracking Austronesian expansion into the Pacific via the paper mulberry plant Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smitha,b,1 banana, taro, breadfruit, and sugarcane, have aDepartment of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand; and bAllan Near Oceanic origins, whereas the sweet potato Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, and the bottle gourd are of South American New Zealand origin. Thus, the results presented by Chang et al. (6), indicating that the most common variant of paper mulberry found in the Pacific, One of the strategies the ancestors of Pacific with the Lapita Cultural Complex (1). The and the one most likely introduced by the early peoples used for successful settlement of the Lapita culture first appears in the Bismarck colonists, has a clear Taiwanese origin, are sig- islands of the Pacific Ocean was the concept Archipelago some 3400 years before present nificant, providing (to my knowledge) the first of transported landscapes (1). Pacific peoples (BP) and rapidly spreads into the previously direct genetic link between Taiwan and one of carried their culturally and economically im- uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania, the Pacific commensal species. portant plants and animals in their coloniz- reaching Tonga and Samoa, on the edge of Native to Asia, including Taiwan, paper ing canoes and introduced these species to thePolynesianTrianglebyabout2900BP(7). mulberry is a dioecious plant (plants are the islands they settled, which were relatively It is generally accepted that the Lapita culture either male or female) that gets its common impoverished in terms of terrestrial re- is an extension of the Neolithic expansion sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Lapita Pottery and a Lower Sea Level in Western Samoai "0
    Pacific Science (1975), Vol. 29, No.4, p. 309-315 Printed in Great Britain Lapita Pottery and a Lower Sea Level in Western SamoaI "0 R. Co GREEN 2 AND HORACE G. RICHARDS3 ABSTRACT: Radiocarbon dates are presented supporting previous estimates of a 2800- to 3000-year B.P. age for a collection of Lapita pottery sherds recovered by dredging a now-submerged coastal settlement on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. New data describing a much enlarged collection are discussed in relation to previously reported materials, and the question of possible changes of sea level as the mechanism for submergence is evaluated. IN RECENT YEARS, Polynesian origins have in­ The recent discovery of other assemblages creasingly become identified with certain early with Eastern Lapita-style pottery in Ha'apai, sites that range from New Britain to Tonga and Vava'u, and Niuatoputapu in the Tongan group Samoa and that contain a type ofpottery known (Davidson 1971, Kaeppler 1973, Rogers 1974), as Lapita (Figure 1). Excavations of sites in the in conjunction with the Samoan discovery, Tongan, Fijian, New Caledonian, New Hebri­ implies that early Eastern Lapita populations des, and Santa Cruz groups and on small islands were resident throughout the Fijian, Tongan, off the coasts of New Britain and New Ireland and Samoan area before any distinctive develop­ have provided data leading to the definition of ment of Lapita culture in the Polynesian direc­ an associated artifact assemblage-perhaps tion took place. The recovery ofa related plain more properly termed a "cultural complex," pottery, as in Samoa, from a site on Futuna because the array of artifacts from these sites is (B.
    [Show full text]
  • The Origins of Early Lapita Culture: the Testimony of Historical Linguistics
    2 The origins of Early Lapita culture: the testimony of historical linguistics Andrew Pawley Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia [email protected] Introduction Debate on the nature and origins of the culture known as Early (Western) Lapita has been clouded by the limited range of the available archaeological evidence defining this culture 1. Although 50 years of archaeological research in the southwest Pacific have yielded more than 200 sites distributed from the Bismarck Archipelago to western Polynesia where Lapita pottery has been found (see Bedford and Sand this volume), and archaeologists have gained a detailed understanding of regional and temporal variations in decorative styles and vessel forms, sampling problems have prevented them from recovering anything like the full range of material culture associated with Lapita communities. One kind of sampling problem has to do with the scale of excavations. Few Lapita habitation sites have been excavated on the large scale needed to recover a fully representative range of materials - artefacts, settlement patterns, faunal remains, etc. This sort of sampling deficiency is likely to be ameliorated by further research. But there is a second kind of shortfall that cannot be remedied because it is in the nature of archaeological assemblages. In Neolithic societies a very high proportion of artefacts are made of perishable materials. This means that even the most artefact-rich assemblages will contain only a small fraction of the total range of artefact types. Kirch and Green (2001:164ff) examined ethnographic records of artefacts for a sample of five traditional Polynesian material cultures and found that, on average, only around 18 percent of artefact types were durable (the range was 14-23 %).
    [Show full text]
  • Interaction and Diversification in the Austronesian Colonization of Remote Oceania
    For Workshop on Migration, Ile de Porquerolles, France, Sept. 5-7 2007 Why do Polynesian island groups have one language and Melanesian island groups have many? Patterns of interaction and diversification in the Austronesian colonization of Remote Oceania ANDREW PAWLEY AUSTRALIAN NATONAL UNIVERSITY 1. The puzzle of different language densities in Polynesia and Melanesia The islands and seas of the southwest and central Pacific are conveniently subsumed under the heading ‘Oceania’.1 In the anthropological and geographic literature Oceania is generally divided into three regions: Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. This division, based on 19th century perceptions of racial and cultural groupings, is unsatisfactory especially because ‘Melanesia’ is not a coherent entity of the same order as the other two, but it remains a standard frame of reference. 2 The prehistoric human settlement of Oceania has left many complex and sometimes puzzling cultural, linguistic and biological patterns. This paper investigates one particular puzzle – the striking differences between Polynesia and Fiji, on the one hand, and almost all of Island Melanesia, on the other, in the density of languages per island group. (‘Island Melanesia’ is that part of Melanesia that excludes the 2400 km long island of New Guinea.) In Polynesia the norm is one language per island group; in Island Melanesia it is many languages. Thus, Samoa, Tonga, the Tokelaus, Tuvalu, the Southern Cooks, the Societies, the Marquesas and Tuamotus at first European contact each had a single language, generally with no more than modest regional variation. The large Fijian archipelago can be said to have just two distinct languages, though each ‘language’ is a dialect chain of considerable diversity.
    [Show full text]
  • Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence
    1 Debating Lapita: Distribution, chronology, society and subsistence Stuart Bedford, Matthew Spriggs, David V. Burley, Christophe Sand, Peter Sheppard and Glenn R. Summerhayes Lapita has been a focus for archaeologists for generations. Initially inspired by the scattered reporting in the early twentieth century of highly decorated sherds (Meyer 1909; McKern 1929; Piroutet 1917), its increasing significance in terms of the human settlement of the Pacific began to build in the 1960s. The Lapita culture has been most clearly defined by its distinctive dentate- stamped decorated pottery and the design system represented on it and on further incised pots. It is defined earliest in the Bismarck Archipelago to the east of the large island of New Guinea, at some time in the centuries preceding 3000 cal. BP. At around that date the Lapita culture spread out from its Bismarck Archipelago ‘homeland’ to beyond previously inhabited regions of Near Oceania to establish the first human colonies in the western part of Remote Oceania, the present-day south-east Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Wallis and Futuna. At about the same time there was a push to the south-west out from the Bismarcks along the south coast of New Guinea, perhaps even as far as the Torres Straits (McNiven et al. 2006). The broad overlapping themes of this volume, Lapita distribution and chronology, society and subsistence, relate to research questions that have long been debated in relation to Lapita. It is a substantial volume with 23 chapters, reflecting the increasing breadth and focus on different aspects of Lapita that have developed over several decades.
    [Show full text]
  • 11 • the Pacific Basin: an Introduction
    11 • The Pacific Basin: An Introduction BEN FINNEY Oceania, the Pacific Island world, is conventionally di­ culture that could be transplanted to the oceanic islands. vided into three regions. Melanesia, originally named for The immediate sources of this movement were almost cer­ the dark skin color of many of its people, comprises mas­ tainly the Southeast Asian islands of what are now the sive New Guinea and the islands extending eastward as Philippine and Indonesian nations. By at least 1500 B.C. far as Fiji. Micronesia is composed of comparatively tiny seafarers, who can be traced from their distinctive pottery islands east of the Philippines and north of Melanesia. called Lapita, had reached the islands of the Bismarck Polynesia, a multitude of islands large and small, is con­ Archipelago off the northeast coast of New Guinea. tained in a vast triangle bounded by Hawai'i on the north, Within a few centuries they had moved eastward through Easter Island (now called Rapa Nui by its Polynesian Melanesian waters beyond the previous frontier of settle­ inhabitants) to the southeast, and New Zealand (now ment, all the way to the islands of Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa called Aotearoa by its Polynesian inhabitants) to the at the western edge of Polynesia. Although some archae­ southwest (fig. 11.1). This tripartite division was first sug­ ologists believe these seafarers kept moving eastward at gested in the early 1830s by the French explorer the same rapid pace, or even faster, the archaeological Dumont d'Urville. 1 and linguistic evidence suggests they may have lingered in A way to conceptualize the Pacific Island world that this triarchipelago region long enough (five hundred to makes more sense in terms of migration history and the one thousand years?) for ancestral Polynesian culture and distribution of seafaring skills is to divide it between Near language to emerge from its roots in Lapita culture.4 Oceania and Remote Oceania, a distinction developed by From this region, which is now known as West Poly- the archaeologist Roger Green.
    [Show full text]