Social Archaeologies and Islands

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Social Archaeologies and Islands" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Island archaeology has advanced significantly during the past two decades, from exponential increases in empirical data to new theoretical breakthroughs, particularly in ecological and evolutionary approaches. While these bodies of knowledge are essential for understanding islands, a predominance of “scientific” theoretical frameworks for interpreting islands could be complemented by more social understandings of life on islands in the past, with implications for islander presents and futures. Island studies in general have moved from using islands as laboratories to research of islands and islanders on their own terms. From the early 2000s the field of island studies has been growing vastly, mainly due to multidisciplinary studies of current global issues and phenomena from the perspective of islands and islanders. The studies of past island life and islanders’ maritime relationships can contribute in major ways to understanding current sustainability issues and conservation strategies. This session brings together perspectives from islands around the world to engage with the diversity of social archaeologies that emerge from the perspective of smaller and larger landmasses surrounded by rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans. The session highlights engagement with the water itself as a medium of human experiences in the past as they link to the present.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)

Documents
  • About Islands and Islanders: Mobility, Connectivity, and Identity in the Balearic Islands (Mediterranean Sea) during the Bronze Age (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Calvo Trias.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Bronze Age, the archaeological record of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea reveals a conspicuous prevalence of similarities across all the islands within the archipelago. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying this convergence phenomenon within the archaeological record, we developed a study centered on the analysis of mobility and...

  • All along the Watch Tower: Surveillance, Survivance, and the Making of a Christianized Landscape in the Mangareva Islands, French Polynesia (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Flexner.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transformation of island environments and settlement patterns resulting from missionisation and Christian conversion is a well-developed theme in the historical archaeology of Oceania. The Mangareva Islands in French Polynesia provide an exemplary case study, featuring dozens of stone structures built by the Catholic Pères des Sacrés Cœurs beginning...

  • Cave of Wonder: A Sacred Topos of Maritime Identities on Kalymnos (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Mina.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caves often occupied prominent locations as visible landmarks or as nodal points in exchange networks and mobility routes. The paper discusses coastal sacred caves, which through the transportation of diverse material culture, provided the backdrop where maritime identities were played out. The study investigates the Late Minoan occupation phase of...

  • Continental Dynamics and the Shaping of Island Societies (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cyprian Broodbank.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Island archaeologists have tended to underplay the significance of continents and their social dynamics in influencing the temporal and spatial patterning witnessed among island societies at a regional and comparative level. When continents are considered, it is largely as staging posts for initial peopling, or as recipients of island trade, with much of...

  • Exploration of Diminutive Spaces: The Connected Isolation of Micronesian Islands (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than 3,000 years ago peoples ventured into Remote Oceania using a combination of sophisticated watercraft, wayfinding techniques—including a celestial compass—and sailing strategies passed down orally through rote learning across generations. Over the course of 2,000+ years, different groups settled islands in Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia,...

  • Iconoclasm Island: New Research on the Destruction of Rapa Nui’s Statues (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark McCoy. Mehrdad Aghagholizadeh. Nicos Makris. Mara Mulrooney. Britton Shepardson.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Monuments are a critical window into people’s values, beliefs, and social memories. The destruction of monuments is especially important since it can shed light on how these aspects of societies change over time. We describe new research aimed at understanding the destruction of moai (statues) on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Our first goal is to build a...

  • Interaction and Isolation in Manislan Mariånas: 1500 BC–AD 1769 (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Montón-Subías. Boyd Dixon.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper addresses long-term processes of inter- and intra-island interaction and isolation in the Manislan Mariånas (Mariana Islands), spanning their first occupation (ca. 1500 BC) to the end of the Jesuit colonial mission (AD 1769). I focus on mobility, ocean communication and networking, engagement with the sea, and social intersectionality. CHamoru...

  • Shellfish Perspectives: Marine Resource Exploitation and Maritimity in Zanzibar (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Faulkner. Akshay Sarathi.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Zanzibar Archipelago experienced dramatic socioeconomic and socioecological changes over the last 2,000 years in line with the rest of the Swahili Coast. The onset of Iron Age transformations linked to foraging and farming economies, connections via the broader Indian Ocean trade network, through the colonial period and into the present day, together...

  • Sustainable Visit to Rapa Nui: Global Perspectives (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Helene Martinsson-Wallin. Sonia Haoa Cardinali. Olaug Andreassen.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I present some research results deriving from a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project called Sustainable Visits in Rapa Nui - Global perspectives. The use of visits refers to tourism, colonization and migrations in the long term perspective, visits with colonial connotations, and research visits and Rapanui migrations, all...

  • World War II Archaeology in the Galápagos Islands: The Soldiers and Convicts at the Wall of Tears (1940–1959) (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Astudillo. Martina Almeida. Juan Camilo Argoti.

    This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the early years of World War II, the US government began actions to protect one of its most important investments in America, the Panama Canal. During the late 1930s, the US Navy and Army built several military bases along the Pacific coast of Central and South America to defend the canal zone. The Galápagos Islands were selected to build a...