Three-Dimensional Spatial Evidence of the Development of Agriculture in the Sigatoka River System, Viti Levu, Fiji

Summary

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 transition from coastal foraging to inland/upland horticulture in Viti Levu, Fiji appears to be marked by the early incorporation (~3000 BP) of fruit arboriculture in the primary tributaries of the Sigatoka River, with later (~2500 BP) evidence for the development of more intensive agriculture involving root and tuber farming and pond field construction. Previously, we documented the evidence for fire and soil chemistry changes associated with human terraforming (2016) and preliminary microfossil evidence for introduced cultigens in the tributary valleys of the Sigatoka River basin (2017). Here, we present a three-dimensional spatial occurrence analysis of multiple classes of sedimentary plant microfossils recovered from core sampling in the Sigatoka drainage to refine the evidence for inland settlement and investment in intensive agricultural subsistence in Fiji.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25740