Prehistory in the Pacific Islands

Prehistory in the Pacific Islands
Author: John Terrell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 1986
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521369565

How, asks John Terrell in this richly illustrated and original book, can we best account for the remarkable diversity of the Pacific Islanders in biology, language, and custom? Traditionally scholars have recognized a simple racial division between Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians, Australians, and South-east Asians: peoples allegedly differing in physical appearance, temperament, achievements, and perhaps even intelligence. Terrell shows that such simple divisions do not fit the known facts and provide little more than a crude, static picture of human diversity.

Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands

Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands
Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 331
Release: 1997
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780300066036

The Pacific Ocean islands have long been considered a natural laboratory where the evolution of human cultures can be studied in the context of thousands of island ecosystems. This text presents research in the ecological history of the Pacific Islands. Focusing on the environmental impact wrought by the Oceanic populations before the advent of Western contact, it challenges earlier views that the islands underwent dramatic environmental change only after European colonization. They demonstrate instead that in some cases the indigenous peoples had an often irreversible effect on the landscapes and biotas of the Pacific Islands and assert that these effects often had important consequences for island societies, economies, and political systems.

The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific

The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific
Author: Geoffrey Irwin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1992
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521476515

The exploration and colonisation of the Pacific is a remarkable episode of human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no prior knowledge of Pacific geography, no documents to record their route, no metal, no instruments for measuring time and none for exploration. Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts, and computer simulations of voyages have produced an enormous range of literature on this controversial and mysterious subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid and purposeful, undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved. Using an innovative model to establish a detailed theory of navigation, Geoffrey Irwin claims that rather than sailing randomly downwind in search of the unknown, Pacific Islanders expanded settlement by the cautious strategy of exploring upwind, so as to ease their safe return. The author has tested this hypothesis against the chronological data from archaeological investigation, with a computer simulation of demographic and exploration patterns and by sailing throughout the region himself.

The Polynesians

The Polynesians
Author: Peter S. Bellwood
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1987
Genre: Ethnology
ISBN: 9789999449878

On the Road of the Winds

On the Road of the Winds
Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2002-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520234618

Providing a synthesis of archaeological and historical anthropological knowledge of the indigenous cultures of the Pacific islands, this text focuses on human ecology and island adaptations.

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania
Author: Ethan E. Cochrane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199925070

"The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania presents the archaeology, linguistics, environment and human biology of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. First colonized 50,000 years ago, Oceania witnessed the independent invention of agriculture, the construction of Easter Island's statues, and the development of the word's last archaic states."--Provided by publisher.

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory
Author: Philip J. Piper
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2017-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1760460958

‘This volume brings together a diversity of international scholars, unified in the theme of expanding scientific knowledge about humanity’s past in the Asia-Pacific region. The contents in total encompass a deep time range, concerning the origins and dispersals of anatomically modern humans, the lifestyles of Pleistocene and early Holocene Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, the emergence of Neolithic farming communities, and the development of Iron Age societies. These core enduring issues continue to be explored throughout the vast region covered here, accordingly with a richness of results as shown by the authors. Befitting of the grand scope of this volume, the individual contributions articulate perspectives from multiple study areas and lines of evidence. Many of the chapters showcase new primary field data from archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. Equally important, other chapters provide updated regional summaries of research in archaeology, linguistics, and human biology from East Asia through to the Western Pacific.’ Mike T. Carson Associate Professor of Archaeology Micronesian Area Research Center University of Guam

On the Road of the Winds

On the Road of the Winds
Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520968891

The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the earth’s surface and encompasses many thousands of islands that are home to numerous human societies and cultures. Among these indigenous Oceanic cultures are the intrepid Polynesian double-hulled canoe navigators, the atoll dwellers of Micronesia, the statue carvers of remote Easter Island, and the famed traders of Melanesia. Decades of archaeological excavations—combined with allied research in historical linguistics, biological anthropology, and comparative ethnography—have revealed much new information about the long-term history of these societies and cultures. On the Road of the Winds synthesizes the grand sweep of human history in the Pacific Islands, beginning with the movement of early people out from Asia more than 40,000 years ago and tracing the development of myriad indigenous cultures up to the time of European contact in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. This updated edition, enhanced with many new illustrations and an extensive bibliography, synthesizes the latest archaeological, linguistic, and biological discoveries that reveal the vastness of ancient history in the Pacific Islands.

Pacific Island Heritage

Pacific Island Heritage
Author: Jolie Liston
Publisher: ANU E Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1921862483

"This volume emerges from a ground-breaking conference held in the Republic of Palau on cultural heritage in the Pacific. It includes bold investigations of the role of cultural heritage in identity-making, and the ways in which community engagement informs heritage management practices. This is the first broad and detailed investigation of the unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage of the Pacific from a heritage management perspective. It identifies new trends in research and assesses relationships between archaeologists, heritage managers and local communities. The methods which emerge from these relationships will be critical to the effective management of heritage sites in the 21st century. A wonderful book which emerges from an extraordinary conference. Essential reading for cultural heritage managers, archaeologists and others with an interest in caring for the unique cultural heritage of the Pacific Islands".

The Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands
Author: Moshe Rapaport
Publisher: Bess Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781573060424

Forty-five contributors offer information on the physical environment, history, culture, population, economy, and living environment of the Pacific islands.