Pacific Islands (Geographic Keyword)

1-25 (134 Records)

Ancestral Pathways of Fiji: Using GIS to Analyze Landscapes of Movement and Lineages within the Sigatoka River Valley (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Riordan. Julie Field.

This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of landscapes of movement establishes the theoretical basis for understanding meaning behind the creation and use of roads, trails, and pathways. This meaning can be categorized by "prioritized relationships" (i.e., social, political, religious, economic) which ultimately stimulate the existence of landscapes of movement. This...


Apotguan Revisited: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Latte Period Burials from Guam (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Rona Ikehara-Quebral. Judith McNeill. Michele Toomay Douglas. Michael Pietrusewsky.

This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural Resources Management studies in the Mariana Islands have consistently expanded opportunities for in-depth bioarchaeological research. Burial assemblages originating from historic preservation compliance obligations generally derive from one of three contexts: displaced fragmentary remains;...


Applications of Geospatial Technologies in Known Archaeological Landscapes: Re-examining the Archaeological Settlement Pattern of Falefa Valley (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Prebble. Seth Quintus. Ethan Cochrane.

This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The development and present nature of landscape archaeology in the Pacific owes much to the pioneering work of Janet Davidson and Roger Green in Falefa Valley, Upolu, Sāmoa. This research, completed in the absence of modern geospatial technology, not only demonstrated the potential of landscape-scale investigations in Polynesia but also...


Arboriculture, Translocated Flora, and Ecological Inheritance in the Marquesas Islands, East Polynesia (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Huebert. Melinda S. Allen.

Contact-period accounts point to considerable variability in Polynesian agronomic production systems. In the Marquesas Islands, a mountainous island group in the eastern Pacific, food production in the proto-historic period was narrowly focused on tree cropping and breadfruit cultivation in particular. Early western visitors remarked on the archipelago’s large and thriving island populations, and their stable and productive arboricultural systems. In this paper, we present the results of a...


Archaeobotany of Ka'ūpūlehu (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Trever Duarte. Jon Tulchin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thousands of charcoal specimens from 23 traditional Hawaiian sites throughout Ka’ūpūlehu Ahupua’a in north Kona were analyzed to see how kama’aina (“people of the land”) interacted with their environment. Fifty-one plant taxa, including 36 plants of Hawaiian origin and six Polynesian introductions, were identified. Combining charcoal identification and...


Archaeology of Colonialism and Ethnogenesis in Guam and the Mariana Islands (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalia Moragas. Sandra Montón-Subías. James Bayman.

This paper presents a new archaeological project that we are co-directing in Umatac, Guam. Combining historical written sources and archaeological information, we seek to contribute a better understanding of the historical-archaeological legacy connected to colonial processes related to the Hispanic Monarchy in the western Pacific, and their role in resulting ethnogenesis.


Archaeology of Luatele Crater: Ritual and Prestige of the Tuimanu'a, Ta'u Island, American Samoa (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Klenck. Mohammed Sahib. Epifania Suafo'a Taua'i.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An archaeological survey covering 50 acres was conducted in and around Luatele or Judds Crater, an extinct volcano, on Taʻu Island, Manuʻa District, American Samoa. The project identified 24 precontact sites comprising 101 archaeological features and a 142 m cave associated with the Samoan legend of Vaatausili. These features include star mounds, oval boulder...


The Archaeology of Public Health and Food Sovereignty in the Pacific Islands (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyra Smith.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonialism has had significant influences on lifeways across the South Pacific, including health and diet in the past and today. Colonially introduced diets have caused a loss of traditional food practices, created cultural power dynamics, and have led to contemporary public health issues. These colonial legacies not only have continued impacts on the...


Artificial Lines in Saltwater and Sand: Boundaries, Borders, and Beaches in Oceania and Australia (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only James Flexner.

This is an abstract from the "Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Islands have long appeared to Western eyes as naturally bounded entities. It has been proposed that they represent ‘natural laboratories’ for understanding natural and cultural evolution. At the same time, islands are recognised as contact zones, for example historian Greg Dening has outlined the significance of...


Banking on Stone Money: The Influence of Traditional "Currencies" on Blockchain Technology (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick.

Centuries ago in western Micronesia, Yapese islanders began traveling to the Palauan archipelago to carve their famous stone money from limestone, which they then transported back to use in a variety of social transactions. While commonly referred to as ‘money’, these disks were not currency in the strict sense, though their value is not dissimilar to other traditional and modern objects where worth is arbitrary based on both real and perceived attributes (e.g., size, shape, quality, pedigree,...


Bayesian Chronological Modeling Parameters for Establishing Initial East Polynesian Colonization (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Rieth. Robert DiNapoli. Carl Lipo. Terry Hunt.

This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tom Dye was an early adopter and advocate for the application of Bayesian chronological modeling in Pacific archaeology. Since the 1990s, this chronology-building method has advanced our understanding of key cultural and demographic events through improved and diverse software options, better...


The Best Gifts come in Small Packages? Coring Volcanic Landscapes in New Britain (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter White. Robin Torrence. Vince Neall.

This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A volcanic environment built up by characterised and well dated airfall tephras is paradise for landscape archaeology because in any excavation the cultural material is placed accurately in time. Shouldn’t this setting also be ideal for environmental data? With expertise provided by Steve Athens, we...


Bottom-Up Data on Sociopolitical Complexity in Ancient Samoa (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ethan Cochrane. Seth Quintus. Matiu Prebble. Ta'iao Matiu Matavai Tautunu.

This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Explanations of sociopolitical complexity are often linked to competition over the control of resources and changes in resource structure, including productivity, predictability, distribution, and other characteristics. These explanations also reference variables of human demography and the...


Challenges, Opportunities, and Kuleana: Historic Preservation in Hawaii (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Regina Hilo.

This is an abstract from the "Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Working and consulting with the community is built into Hawaii’s historic preservation laws and statutes. I work for the History and Culture branch of the State Historic Preservation Division, and my main role is mitigating effects to human skeletal remains, iwi...


Chronological Modeling of Early Settlement on Yap, Western Micronesia (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Napolitano. Scott Fitzpatrick. Geoffrey Clark. Amy Gusick. Esther Mietes.

This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The initial human settlement of Yap, a group of four small islands in western Micronesia, is one of the least understood colonization events in Remote Oceania. Unlike Polynesia, where multiple lines of evidence such as linguistics, genetics, and material culture analyses coalesce around a coherent narrative of initial...


Community Training and Traditions: Accessing Archaeological Methodology In Creating a Baseline for Trail Stewardship (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Brown.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Along the base of Muliwai Pali in Waipio Valley, Hawaii the King’s Trail gently travels through a traditional cultural landscape rich in moʻolelo (story) and genealogy. During the summer of 2020 descendants of Waipio, Muliwai and Waimanu participated in the documentation and mapping of select portions within a 1.5 mile corridor of this kuamoʻo (trail) from...


Consuming Our Pasts: Food as Nature and Culture (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharyn Jones.

This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Taking inspiration from post-humanist theory, I frame my work about human life both past and present in a way that attempts to avoid traditional concretized definitions of humanity and culture that envision these subjects as separate from nature or the environment. Post-humanists view humanity as only part of a much bigger and...


Continuity and Change in Early Colonial-Era Hawai‘i: An Examination of Foreign Artifacts from Nu‘alolo Kai, Kaua‘i Island (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Summer Moore.

Archaeologists increasingly emphasize the role of social and cultural context in understanding how indigenous groups in colonial settings appropriated foreign goods. While documentary accounts of explorers, traders, and missionaries have long been used by Pacific historians to examine foreign trade in Hawaii’s early colonial period, archaeological sites from this period have rarely been identified. As a result, we know little about how foreign goods acquired through such exchanges were actually...


Contrast and Connection in a Colonial-Era Hawaiian Hinterland: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Households on the Nā Pali Coast, Kaua‘i Island (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Summer Moore.

This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While researchers once considered the residents of hinterlands as the passive recipients of social and cultural influence, scholars have increasingly reframed these regions as dynamic zones of innovation and creative adaptation. Hinterlands have often been mentioned in investigations of indigenous sites in the context of European colonialism. Still,...


Coral Islands, High Islands: A Case of Continued Contact and Cultural Divergence in East Polynesia (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Cramb. Victor Thompson.

This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Polynesian atolls are often viewed as outlying provinces or "outer Islands" as compared to larger high islands. These often remote and diminutive coral islands are, and were, home to relatively small populations. Many coral island groups trace ancestry to, and had sustained contact with, high islands. These past connections and modern sociopolitical...


Core-Hinterland dynamics in New Zealand Archaeology (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Greig. Richard Walter.

This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of ‘hinterland’ encompasses ideas of distance, marginality and challenge and is often contrasted with ‘core’, which in turn implies centrality and resource richness. In this paper we address the applicability of both these concepts in New Zealand and examine their role in understanding long-term Maori history. We suggest that high...


Cranial Vault Modification in the Mariana Islands (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Rona Ikehara-Quebral. Michael Pietrusewsky. Michele Toomay Douglas.

Cultural flattening of the posterior skull, rare in the Mariana Islands, was recently observed in multiple human skeletons from a Latte Period site in Guam. Prior to this study, only one case of possible artificial cranial modification was reported for this region. The cranium of a young adult female from Songsong Village, Rota, was described as having "asymmetrical deformation in the occipital region consistent with artificial shaping practices." In a review of the ethnohistoric literature,...


A Dagger to the Heart? Testing Assumptions of Archaeological Network Analysis with New Guinean Ethnographic Collections (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Golitko. James Zimmer-Dauphinee. John Edward Terrell.

Progressive cultural and biological diversification and divergence over space and time is one of the grand meta-narratives of archaeological thought. Much of the method and theory employed in support of this narrative is arguably at odds with what Emirbayer and Goodwin label the "anti-categorical imperative" at the heart of social network relational thinking. Here we utilize spatial network models within the broader family of Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to examine the relationship...


Dental Morphology of the Prehistoric Chamorro, Guam (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Effingham. Samantha Blatt.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dental morphology has a long history of use in understanding the biological distance and migrations of past populations. Though distribution of the frequencies of morphological traits of teeth have been documented around the world, variation within Micronesia is the least studied among the peoples of the Pacific, leaving peopling of the region the least...


Determining the Chronology of Reef Island Development for Constraining Initial Human Colonization of Pacific Atolls (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Marshall Weisler. Quan Hua. Jian-xin Zhao. Hiroya Yamano. Ai Du Nguyen.

This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As recent worldwide news coverage has aptly reported, Pacific coral atolls are the most precarious landscapes for human settlement, yet many of them evidence continuous occupation for 2,000 years. Coral atolls are unique in their small size, low elevation, limited diversity of terrestrial flora and fauna, poorly...