Selection-Driven Range Expansion Explains Lapita Colonisation of Remote Oceania

Author(s): Ethan Cochrane

Year: 2017

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.

Cite this Record

Selection-Driven Range Expansion Explains Lapita Colonisation of Remote Oceania. Ethan Cochrane. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 430672)

Keywords

Geographic Keywords
Oceania

Spatial Coverage

min long: 111.973; min lat: -52.052 ; max long: -87.715; max lat: 53.331 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16384