Determining the Chronology of Reef Island Development for Constraining Initial Human Colonization of Pacific Atolls

Summary

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 developed and unconsolidated soils, and absence of surface potable water—all characteristics that constrain human settlement. Indeed, global warming has accelerated sea level rise that is altering shorelines, eroding archaeological sites, and inundating modern villages and gardening zones. Consequently, how did small human founding groups survive over the millennia and, in a sense, flourish on these most challenging of Pacific landscapes? Our multidisciplinary research utilizes information from archaeology, island emergence and development, and sea level rise to understand human colonization and adaptation to Pacific low-lying coral atolls. Atoll emergence constrains the earliest time possible for human colonization—the dating of which is fundamental for addressing the tempo of economic and social change and for charting population growth. Using dated samples from habitation layers and paleo–sea level indicators, we reconstructed sea level history, island emergence, and facies development for constraining the period of initial human colonization at Ebon Atoll, southern Marshall Islands, eastern Micronesia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 31976