Oceania (Geographic Keyword)
126-150 (240 Records)
Microfossils in archaeology are defined as the floral and faunal-derived microscopic biogenic particles that preserve long after the original organism has died and decayed. Some such examples are silica phytoliths, starches, pollens and spores, calcium oxalates, and plant cellular tissue like trichomes and stomata. This type of analysis is a valuable proxy for inferring prehistoric environmental conditions and landscape change over time, as well as direct evidence for the presence of certain...
Mid-sequence colonization and occupation at Nukubalavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji (2015)
Inspired by Bill Dickinson’s broad and multifaceted perspective on the archaeological record of human colonization in the Pacific Islands, we present both new data from Vanua Levu, Fiji—informed in part by Bill’s ceramic petrography from the site of Nukubalavu and reflections on the thalassic pattern of colonization in the central Pacific Islands. While a sea focus in the Pacific Islands is unremarkable, some Lapita, Late Lapita, and Mid-sequence occupations of Fiji reveal an intriguing pattern...
Modeling climate impacts and human predation on marine populations using prey age profiles: an agent based model (2015)
Archaeological assemblages provide data on marine prey age which can inform researchers about the influence of human predation and climate related habitat change. While, human predation may generally lead to a reduced mean prey age, climate related impacts may produce different age profile patterns. In this paper we model the impact of both human foraging and climate change on prey age using an agent based model. We assess our model results using zooarchaeological marine assemblages from...
Modelling climate impacts on human societies and marine fisheries in central Polynesia (2016)
The effects of past climate change on Polynesian societies are poorly understood, in part because detailed palaeoclimate records have been lacking. Drawing on recently assembled palaeoclimate observations from across central Polynesia, along with those from realistically forced climate simulations, we assess how climate variability affected marine fisheries and long-term trends in harvesting practices. Little Ice Age (ca. 1400-1800 AD) conditions are modelled for central Polynesia focusing on...
Molecular taphonomy of biominerals in the Western Pacific (2017)
Molecular and microarchaeological artifacts of human subsistence are recorded in the bones, tissues and residues of the skeleton. These artifacts provide substantial correlative evidence for macroscopic and sedimentary data of dietary plant and animal use in the archaeological record. Within the depositional context however, many factors in the local environment disturb or degrade these signatures, reducing or eliminating their usefulness in diet reconstruction. The islands of the tropical...
Monumentality and the Archaic State: Heiau Distribution in Kaupo, Maui (2015)
In the early 18th century, competing archaic states on the islands of Maui and Hawai’i were engaged in a long-standing conflict to establish primacy over the Hawaiian Archipelago. To better oversee preparations for war, Maui’s King Kekaulike moved his entire royal court to the fertile, but politically peripheral district of Kaupo. Oral traditions speak of Kekaulike expanding a network of ritual structures throughout the region, resulting today in a landscape covered with some the largest heiau...
Monuments, boundaries, and chiefly competition in the development of the Tongan state (2017)
The principal Tongan island of Tongatapu was the epicentre of a hierarchical and geographically integrated society which some archaeologists contend reached the level of archaic state by AD 1300–1400. Dynastic chiefs affirmed their power and rights to land through monumental construction and a dispersed settlement pattern that fully occupied their inherited territories with lower-ranking members of their kin-based corporate groups. Recent archaeological survey, aided by LiDAR, reveals the...
More than a pretty face? Exploring the allure of obsidian valuables from Papua New Guinea (2015)
Brilliant, shiny, translucent, black. On the surface, everything made from obsidian is inherently attractive. So why are some obsidian artifacts more highly valued than others? Using the example of obsidian use in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, properties that go beyond physical attributes are explored as potential factors in the creation of valuables: e.g., exoticism; ownership of resources; social links; symbolism; performance; staged production; specialist makers. SAA 2015 abstracts...
Morphometric analysis of Stemmed Obsidian Tools from Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) (2015)
Of the few resources available to prehistoric people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), obsidian was plentiful. Yet out of the countless surviving shaped obsidian artifacts that are found on the island, virtually all of them are of the same general class, the mata’a. Mata’a are flaked obsidian stemmed tools formed from a hard-hammer primary flake. As relatively simple stemmed obsidian tools with wide blades, their form is similar to artifacts known as mata’a found on other Polynesian islands...
Mortuary Practices of the Pre-Latte and Latte People of Guam Based on Data from the Naton Beach Site (2015)
The large sample of Pre-Latte and Latte period burials from the Naton Beach Site on Guam offers an opportunity to examine the differences and similarities in the mortuary practices. This poster examines several research questions: What is the pattern of burials in terms of location within the site? Do the patterns relate to potential residence areas? What is the pattern of internment in terms of orientation, position, placement, age, gender, and grave goods? A cluster analysis was completed by...
Multicomponent analyses of prehistoric Fijian diet: Stable isotopes of bone collagen and carbonate (2017)
Several studies have provided stable isotopic insights into prehistoric Fijian diet via carbon and nitrogen analyses of bone collagen, with recent reports suggesting a diet of predominantly C3 plants though with some individuals exhibiting significant input from lower trophic level marine resources. Here we add to these studies by incorporating both a larger sample size from several sites on Viti Levu and a combined analysis of isotope data obtained from human bone collagen and carbonate. The...
The Mussau Islands Lapita Exchange Network: A Review of Three Decades of Analysis (2015)
From 1985-88 the author conducted excavations at Talepakemalai (ECA) and other Lapita sites in the Mussau Islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, recovering an extensive assemblage of pottery, obsidian, lithics and manuports, and other materials. Efforts to geochemically characterize the diversity and trace the potential sources of ceramic clay and temper, as well as the obsidian and other lithic materials from Mussau have continued over three decades. Throughout this evolving research project...
Narrative or Analysis: identifying scenes in the rock art of the Kimberley and Central Desert, Australia (2017)
Analysis of the composition of figurative motifs within rock art panels holds the potential to provide information on the relationships intended by the artist/s between humans, between humans and animals, or between animals depicted. Two contrasting rock art assemblages from Australia illustrate this potential; the paintings from the remote Kimberley in the tropical northwest, and the diverse geometric assemblage from the arid heart of central Australia. Ethnographic data provides...
Native Astronomy in Micronesia: a Rudimentary Science (1951)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Negotiating social identity through practices with stone (2015)
Dazzling, large, highly retouched obsidian objects comprised part of the material world of prehistoric people from West New Britain, Papua New Guinea from sometime between ca 6300- to 3300 years ago BP. Beyond their role as valuables, the seemingly mundane practices of choosing and acquiring raw material together with the application of a sequence of actions on the material and knowledge used in making them were fundamental for creating and structuring social relations. A case study,...
New insights into the dynamics of human behaviour during the Last Glacial Maximum and Terminal Pleistocene in the Pilbara, Northwest Australia (2017)
The emerging picture from the Australian archaeological record shows a varied pattern of human responses to the environmental and climatic fluctuations that characterised the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the terminal Pleistocene in arid Australia. Archaeological data suggests a decline in site use and reorganization of human landscape use in correlation to broad shifts in climate and environment. The nature of these changes is complex and requires unpacking on a high-resolution scale as it is...
A new method for the identification of temper in pottery (2017)
This poster presents new research on a novel technique to analyse temper in archaeological ceramics. The outcome of the study was to assess whether petrographic analysis of temper grains can be automated through the combination of mineral mapping and remote sensing. Ten pottery samples were analysed by automated mineral mapping. The output of analysis is an image of mineral distribution, based on 15 micron spot analyses, with a quantification of total abundancies of minerals in the sample. The...
Nukubalavu 1: A Preliminary Examination of Mid-Sequence Ceramics and Culture Change on Vanua Levu, Fiji (2015)
We present new data from the ceramic assemblage from the site of Nukubalavu 1 in Natewa Bay on Vanua Levu, Fiji. The site was excavated in the summers of 2013 and 2014; it is one of the only excavated sites on the island of Vanua Levu. Over 29,400 sherds were analyzed, many of which are diagnostic, typical of stylistic phases in the Fijian ceramic sequence. The assemblage includes Late Lapita (ca. 2500 BP), Fijian Plainware (ca. 2500-2100 BP), and Navatu (ca. 2100-900 BP) phases of the Fijian...
Nukubulavu: An examination of Fijian Mid-sequence ceramics on Vanua Levu, Fiji (2017)
This paper reports on excavations from field seasons in 2013 and 2014 when major excavations on the main landmass of Vanua Levu, Fiji were conducted at the beach site of Nukubulavu. This site is positioned on a small peninsula in the island’s southeastern Natewa Bay region. Nukubulavu produced ceramic assemblages that extend to all of Fiji’s known culture history. The team also documented a deeply buried probable house floor with diagnostic artifacts that indicate intensive occupation during...
The Nutritional Ecology of Human Obesity (2015)
Nutrition has exerted a powerful influence on human evolution and history, and continues to play a central role in global challenges such as food security and obesity. However, the complexity of nutrition presents considerable challenges for researchers to unravel its grip on human affairs. In this talk I will introduce an approach called nutritional geometry that has been developed to aid this process. Nutritional geometry differs from conventional nutritional models in acknowledging that...
Oceanic Culture History: Essays in Honour of Roger Green. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication. (1996)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History (1968)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
OFT, BSR, and JOC: James O’Connell’s Contributions to Understanding Broad Spectrum Economies Using Foraging Theory (2015)
O’Connell (JOC) was among the first to recognize the potential of optimal foraging theory (OFT) as a research strategy for investigating the Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR). His work in Australia carried profound implications for the BSR that stimulated research particularly in the Great Basin and Australia. Although testing predictions in the archaeological record has proved challenging, these studies revealed aspects of the BSR not anticipated by simple foraging models. Recently, the...
ON LOSING ONE’S HEAD IN NEW GUINEA: HEAD RITUALS AMONG NEW GUINEA HUNTER-GATHERERS AND FISHER-FORAGERS (2016)
Although commonly thought of as a land of horticulturalists, contact-era New Guinea was home to a number of ‘simple’ hunter-gatherer and complex fisher-forager groups. This paper surveys what we know of how these communities treated the human head in mortuary and other rituals and the cosmological contexts in which these rites were embedded. The fisher-forager cases are of special interest because at contact they were all head-hunters, an activity that generated elaborate ritual complexes...
On Swiddening and Pigs: The Management of Micronesian Agroforests (2016)
Agroforestry, or the growing of tree crops, is a long-standing and key food production practice throughout much of the world. As with all systems of food production, the way that humans manage agroforests has a profound impact on their composition as well as their sustainability. For over 2,000 years, eastern Micronesians have relied largely on tree crop production, vegeculture, and fishing for subsistence. In this study, we focus on late prehistoric manipulation of floral environments on the...