Placing the Early Pre-Latte Period Site of San Roque on Saipan in Its Broader Context

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.

This comparative assessment of the San Roque site in northern Saipan to other early Pre-Latte period sites in the Mariana Islands, circa 1500–1100 BC, presents far from uniform data that suggest that maritime settlers of the archipelago may have targeted a range of natural settings for survival upon arrival. These settings appear to have included inland estuaries and marshes for planting aroids, cliff lines with caves for fresh water and native forest resources, and beach dunes with shallow lagoons and offshore reefs for suitable canoe landings from which to fish and travel. Recent DNA research and similarities in material culture suggest multiple origins along a “cultural corridor” from the Philippines to Sulawesi and island Melanesia circa 1500–1100 BC, long enough to foment Lapita and Pre-Latte traditions in what was by then no longer Remote Oceania.

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): 31971