Selection-Driven Range Expansion Explains Lapita Colonisation of Remote Oceania

Summary

Archaeological explanations of colonization often focus on presumed human motivations. What drives humans when faced with the potentially risky and rewarding colonization of unoccupied island regions: curiosity, wanderlust, opportunity, escape? At best, human motivation is only a partial explanation for colonization and one that is difficult to evaluate with archaeological data. In contrast, archaeologically visible, population-scale patterns of human colonization are explicable by the natural and social environment, transmission and selection. This paper develops a range-expansion hypothesis from animal ecology and evolution to explain Lapita colonisation of Remote Oceania. The hypothesis is tested with both archaeological data and simulation modelling.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Sailing at the Edge of Time: Global Perspectives on Island Colonization

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16384