Oceania (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (240 Records)
Archaeological research on the island of Aneityum, the southern-most inhabited island of the Vanuatu archipelago (the former New Hebrides) began in 1964 under the direction of Richard and Mary Shutler. It was soon after this that William Dickinson first began analysing pottery sherds from various sites across the archipelago. Since those early beginnings he has studied 100s of samples including 112 samples from the single site of Teouma. Early pottery sites remained elusive on the southern...
Can Artificial Reef Wrecks Reduce Diver Impacts on Historic Shipwrecks? A Case Study from Australia (2015)
Wreck diving is an increasingly popular activity, and has seen increasing numbers of divers visiting historic shipwreck sites. In some cases this has led to adverse impacts on these sites. A range of management strategies are used to manage diver impacts, ranging from exclusion to limiting the number of divers. Another strategy that deserves closer evaluation the use of artificial reef wrecks. Artificial reefs wrecks are popular attractions, and the number of vessels being sunk as dive sites has...
Christchurch: The Most English of New Zealand's Cities? (2016)
Established by the Canterbury Association in 1850, Christchurch, New Zealand, has long been regarded as the most English of New Zealand's cities. This sobriquet - sometimes meant positively, but often used negatively - has been based in large part on the city's appearance. Curiously, however, the validity of this assumption has never really been tested, and certainly has not been tested using archaeological data. The volume of archaeological work in Christchurch since the 2011 earthquakes - 2000...
Clay and Technology: Micronesian ceramic tradition (2015)
Pottery tradition in Micronesia was diverse in terms of technology. This relates to various factors, such as historical and/or cultural reasons and the natural environmental conditions. Above all, the nature of clay resource available to the potters has significant effect upon forming techniques and products. Thanks to William Dickinson’s wide-ranging geological knowledge and active involvement in mineralogical studies of excavated pottery from Oceania, our understanding on prehistoric pottery...
Close to Home: bringing heritage management graduate programs to descendant communities (2015)
Hawaiʻi’s state regulations require principal investigators in the 26 active archaeological consulting firms to possess "a graduate degree from an accredited institution in archaeology, or anthropology, with a specialization in archaeology, or an equivalent field." Because there have been few opportunities for appropriate local graduate training, many heritage management specialists are hired from regions outside of Hawaiʻi and begin with little background or connection to descendant...
Coastal development and palaeoenvironment on the north coast of Papua New Guinea: the Paniri Creek sequence (2016)
Pleistocene-Holocene environmental variance in the southwestern Pacific plays a critical role in explaining the human settlement potential of islands, and their respective settlement histories. In particular, prevalence of viable ecological niches for human settlement on the northern coast of New Guinea has likely fluctuated due to a combination of eustatic and tectonic factors that may have constrained the size of human populations living there as well as its potential as a route of movement...
Coastal Groundwater Seeps on Rapa Nui (2015)
Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) is a remarkably resource-poor volcanic island. Significantly, it lacks surface streams found on more tropical Polynesian islands, other than several remote access volcanic crater lakes. Due to the island’s highly permeable, volcanic subsurface, rainwater infiltrates rapidly and becomes groundwater. Only along the coast does the water table intersect the topography to form seeps or springs. We hypothesize these seeps and springs were a primary source of fresh water...
Collaboration and Indigenous Archaeology at Maluaka on the Big Island of Hawai’i (2016)
A collaborative archaeological project on the Big Island of Hawaii involves excavation and intensive water flotation to recover plant remains at Maluaka, a ten acre parcel of the North Kona agricultural field system above Keauhou traditionally known as the Kuahewa. The work is conducted in collaboration with Kamehameha Schools, a private charitable educational trust endowed by the will of Hawaiian Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1831-1884). The project involves linkages with elementary,...
Colonization of the Land of Stone Money: Resolving the Unclear Origins of Early Settlements of Yap, Western Caroline Islands (2017)
The prehistoric colonization of remote islands in Micronesia represents some of the most significant series of diasporas in human history. While archaeological and genetic research is shedding new light on the origins and timing of what were clearly multiple and chronologically disparate entries into the western and eastern Micronesian archipelagoes, many of these colonizing ventures are poorly understood. This is particularly true of Yap in the Western Caroline Islands. Unlike the Palau and the...
The colossal hats (pukao) of monumental statues: an analysis of shape variability among the pukao of Rapa Nui (2015)
As part of monumental statue (moai) construction during the prehistory of Rapa Nui, islanders quarried bodies of red scoria, carved them into hats (pukao), and placed them atop statues measuring up to 10 meters tall. Despite overall great interest in moai and the improbable magnitude of pukao that were raised to reach their positions on the heads of statues, few studies have investigated pukao production and transport. This study seeks to analyze three-dimensional variability of pukao using...
The Commensal animals in the Pacific – What might DNA results suggest about the animal-human relationships through time? (2017)
For the last twenty years we have been studying modern and ancient DNA of the various commensal animals in the Pacific. Different patterns of distribution and genetic variation exist and may provide information regarding the animal-human relationships and the role these animals played in the various Pacific cultures through time.
A comparative analysis of a traditional western Polynesian tupua at Swains Island, American Samoa. (2015)
In 2013 an archaeological survey was conducted on Swains Island, American Samoa, a remote atoll in western Polynesian. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a traditional Polynesian religious structure known as a tupua that was identified and documented during the survey. The tupua is a unique structure when compared to other religious structures that have been described in the archaeological and ethnohistorical literature. However, analysis shows that individual structural features are...
Compendia and Collaboration: A Case Study from Hawai`i (2015)
This paper presents a case study of how open methods and practices of reproducible research facilitated collaboration in the archaeological community that led to the solution of the long-standing problem of when Polynesians colonized Hawai`i. Central to this effort was creation of a compendium from which the dating analysis could be replicated. Practical advice is offered on how to create and share a compendium using software tools familiar to archaeologists. SAA 2015 abstracts made available...
The complexities and implications of animal translocations in Pacific prehistory (2015)
The Pacific region has some of the earliest evidence of animal translocation in the world. The use of transported landscapes – including the introduction of a range of plants and animals - was a major strategy for Pacific Island colonists, particularly in the settlement of Remote Oceania. We have been studying genetic variation in Pacific commensals for nearly 20 years and through these studies have had to constantly rethink our concepts of human and animal interactions generally and, more...
Connection and Competition: some early insights gained from petrographic studies of New Caledonian Lapita pottery (2015)
In this paper we will present the newest results gained from both petrographic and chemical compositional analyses of New Caledonian Lapita pottery samples, to address issues concerning long-distance connections among several Lapita communities, and competition that might have happened between Northern and Southern Lapita communities. We have been able to develop an effective way of identifying pottery production areas within New Caledonia, and our results suggest that there were possible social...
The construction of archaeological practice: Sex/gender and sexuality on the fringe (2017)
Archaeologists have incorporated sex/gender and sexuality research in projects for decades, yet such foci have failed to become widespread as they are largely considered a specialty or niche topic. This paper first looks at why the topics in question have remained on the fringe of archaeological research. The subsequent discussion analyzes ways in which contemporary practices can counteract deeply embedded ideas about the archaeology of sex/ gender and sexuality, making this approach to the...
Danalaig a yabu kaipai pa kulai a inab thonar no koi ngapa wagel (Our way of life from a long time ago to the next generation coming): Archaeological and Mualaig biographies of missions. (2018)
In attending to the life or lives of things, biographical approaches in archaeology focus attention to the vitality of objects in change and to narrative. Torres Strait Islander biographies similarly explore themes around the transformation of things though tend rather more to emphasise place in structuring historical narratives. In Torres Strait, history is emplaced, encountered and generative. This paper traces the pathways of Mualgal (the people of Mua Island, western Torres Strait, NE...
Dating of East Polynesian ceremonial sites – Cases from Rapa Nui and the Society Islands (2015)
Finds of Polynesian rat in the earliest dated cultural layer on Rapa Nui give evidence to that the initial settlers to the island came from the Polynesian area. However, recent research and dating of ceremonial sites by us in Rapa Nui and the Society Islands have indicated that the Rapa Nui monuments are at least 100 year earlier and more elaborated than the ones in the Society island. In this paper we discuss that various interactions, historical trajectories, and the arrival of the sweet...
De-coding landscape heritage through cross-disciplinary studies in Pacific Oceania (2015)
Landscapes can be appreciated as heritage resources with complex natural and cultural histories, potentially studied through diverse data-sets and intellectual approaches. Toward illustrating some of these prospects, examples are presented from research across the Pacific Oceanic region, drawing on digital elevation models, coding of land cover and other geographic attributes, site-specific geoarchaeological testing, georeferencing of historical maps and images, and traditional ethnohistories as...
Death at the Edge of Empire and Beyond: The Divergent Histories of Coffin Furniture and Coffin Hardware (2013)
The coffin was the centerpiece of the Victorian-era funeral and the most expensive material purchase made by the family or friends of the deceased. As with all events played out in public, the coffin was subject to the dictates of fashion. Beginning with the origins of mass-produced coffin furniture in eighteenth century England, this paper explores two divergent histories of coffin decoration through the Victorian era. An analysis of materials recovered from Brisbane, Australia looks at...
Death by a Thousand Cuts: Souveniring, Salvage and the Long, Sad Demise of HMAS Perth (I) (2018)
In May 2017, maritime archaeologists affiliated with the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) and Indonesia’s Pusat Arkeologi Nasional (ARKENAS) conducted a survey and site assessment of HMAS Perth (I), a modified Leander class light cruiser sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Sunda Strait in March 1942. When discovered in 1967, Perth’s wreck site was almost completely intact, save for battle damage and subsequent deterioration caused by natural transformative...
Defining Territories: Exploratory Analysis in Polynesia (2017)
Territory boundaries can often be difficult to identify archaeologically despite their importance in understanding the larger population process of competition between groups in the past. This analysis tests our ability to define archaeological territories on islands based on geospatial relationships between resources and fortifications. Territories are the result of historical processes of competition between groups. Testing of this method is conducted for the island of Rapa, Austral Islands,...
Despotism, cooperation, and the evolution of social hierarchy in prehistoric Hawai‘i (2015)
Ancient Hawaiian society is often emphasized as a locus for the evolution of complex hierarchical polities. At the time of European contact, Hawaiian society was divided into a large class of commoners and a smaller class of hereditary chiefs and land-managers, the latter controlling a vastly disproportionate share of land and resources. This despotism by Hawaiian elites is regularly emphasized in discussions of the ‘development of the state’; however, the high level of cooperation inherent in...
Determining Geochemical Variability of Fine-Grained Basalt Sources/Quarries for Facilitating Prehistoric Interaction Studies in Polynesia (2015)
William "Bill" Dickinson has long been interested in tracking interaction between Pacific Island societies by comparing temper sands of prehistoric ceramics and, more recently, thin section descriptions of basalt adzes. Fine grained basalt sources or quarries anchor ancient interaction spheres, yet few of the dozens of adze quarries found throughout Polynesia are known in sufficient detail to understand intra-source variability. This fundamental data is essential for confidently assigning...
Developing a microfossil key for Fiji from modern herbarium specimens (2015)
Microfossil analysis provides a valuable proxy for inferring prehistoric environmental conditions as well as direct evidence for the presence of agricultural domesticates and other important subsistence cultigens. However, the body of reference material for identifying individual plant morphotypes is lacking. Here we present our preliminary efforts at assessing the efficacy of modern herbarium specimens as a key for identifying archaeological sedimentary and calculus-derived microfossils. We...