Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania – associated with ... more Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania – associated with Austronesian-speaking Lapita culture – were almost completely East Asian, without detectable Papuan ancestry. Yet Papuan-related genetic ancestry is found across present-day Pacific populations, indicating that peoples from Near Oceania have played a significant – but largely unknown – ancestral role. Here, new genome-wide data from 19 South Pacific individuals provide direct evidence of a so-far undescribed Papuan expansion into Remote Oceania starting ~2,500 years before present, far earlier than previously estimated and supporting a model from historical linguistics. New genome-wide data from 27 contemporary ni-Vanuatu demonstrate a subsequent and almost complete replacement of Lapita-Austronesian by Near Oceanian ancestry. Despite this massive demographic change, incoming Papuan languages did not replace Austronesian languages. Population replacement with language continuity is extremely rare – if not unprecedented – in human history. Our analyses show that rather than one large-scale event, the process was incremental and complex, with repeated migrations and sex-biased admixture with peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago.
AbstrAct Warfare and conflict are associated with complex societies in Polynesia where competitio... more AbstrAct Warfare and conflict are associated with complex societies in Polynesia where competition and coercion were common in island chiefdoms. In prehistoric Oceania, Tonga was unique for an Archaic state that under the Tu'i Tonga dynasty established control over an entire archipelago from AD 1200 to AD 1799 prior to a prolonged period of warfare. Lidar data was used to identify earthwork fortifications over the entirety of Tongatapu and to examine the conflict landscape using lidar-derived attributes in tandem with archaeological and historical information. The distribution of earthwork defences indicates a complex history of conflict and political machinations across Tongatapu beginning with the Tu'i Tonga chiefs at Lapaha, but resulting in a mid-19th century civil war ending with a new royal dynasty. Fortifications offer important evidence of social-political change, and the heritage condition of earthwork defences, many of which are under threat from development, was assessed with lidar.
This volume explores the rich world of portable art in the Asia-Pacific, from the earliest exampl... more This volume explores the rich world of portable art in the Asia-Pacific, from the earliest examples of beads and other ornaments made by Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Australia and Southeast Asia to the staggering diversity of small carved objects and related artworks from the recent past and ethnographic present of Oceania. The book provides an important compilation of the many discoveries of portable art made at archaeological sites across this vast region. It also presents a stimulating discussion of what portable art is and what it means from a uniquely Australasian perspective, as well as from the viewpoint of those interested in the origin of art and the evolutionary history of our species.
A B S T R A C T Both archaeological and isotopic data document dietary changes over the first fiv... more A B S T R A C T Both archaeological and isotopic data document dietary changes over the first five centuries of Western Pacific island settlement, a time period beginning with the Lapita expansion about 3000 years ago. This change is marked by a decrease in marine food intake and an increase in vegetal food intake occurring in the Late Lapita/ immediately post-Lapita populations. The recent discovery of human burials at Talasiu (~2700–2600 cal. BP) in the Kingdom of Tonga opens new opportunities to assess this matter. We characterize the nature of the food items consumed by the Talasiu humans (n = 21) using collagen and apatite carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. We conducted an intra-Pacific comparison to examine the use of marine resources and the contribution of horticultural products and to look at the homogeneity of dietary practices within the Tongan group. Isotope results indicate a mixed diet of terrestrial and marine resources including a differential contribution of more specific marine foods (e.g., non-reef fish/inshore fish and shellfish). The Talasiu dietary pattern appears closer to that of the early Lapita population of Teouma than to other Late Lapita populations suggesting a different pattern of dietary change at the eastern end of the Lapita distribution. The slower rate of change may be due to the small size of both the island and the population, and also the additional potential role of social or cultural factors.
Ancestral Polynesian society is the formative base for development of the Polynesian cultural tem... more Ancestral Polynesian society is the formative base for development of the Polynesian cultural template and proto-Polynesian linguistic stage. Emerging in western Polynesia ca 2700 cal BP, it is correlated in the archaeological record of Tonga with the Polynesian Plain-ware ceramic phase presently thought to be of approximately 800 years duration or longer. Here we re-establish the upper boundary for this phase to no more than 2350 cal BP employing a suite of 44 new and existing radiocarbon dates from 13 Polynesian Plainware site occupations across the extent of Tonga. The implications of this boundary, the abrupt-ness of ceramic loss, and the shortening of duration to 350 years have substantive implications for archaeological interpretations in the ancestral Polynesian homeland.
Warfare is often considered as a key factor in the formation complex societies, but in the Pacifi... more Warfare is often considered as a key factor in the formation complex societies, but in the Pacific archaeological evidence for inter-group conflict during political centralization is rare. Most earthwork forts in Tonga are assumed to have been built in the nineteenth century when the traditional system of rulership collapsed, yet few forts on Tongatapu have been excavated or 14C dated. A fort in the chiefly center of the ancient Tongan state was mapped with theodolite and LiDAR, and excavated. Radiocarbon and traditional history indicate the fort known as the Lapaha Kolotau was made in the fourteenth century AD at the same time that chiefly architecture was being built at an unprecedented scale at the new elite center. The construction of an earthwork fort provides the first evidence that political centralization in Tonga was likely to have been contested.
The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long-dista... more The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long-distance ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km, and establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island SouthEast Asia and the Pacific. In 2010, Clark et al. published a paper discussing a number of radiocarbon dates from the Bapot-1 site on Saipan Island, but a disparity between charcoal and marine shell (Anadara sp.) results prevented the calculation of a definitive age for the site and left open the possibility that Bapot-1 was first settled as early as 3500 calBP. Here, we present new research using a combination of stable isotope (δ 13 C and δ 18 O) and 14 C information to demonstrate that A. antiquata from the lowest layers of Bapot-1 is affected by hardwaters. These new results indicate human arrival at Bapot-1 occurred around 3200–3080 calBP (1250–1130 BC). We recommend a similar isotopic evaluation for other sites in the Marianas that are dated by marine shell.
The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific around 3,000 yea... more The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific around 3,000 years ago 1 marked the beginning of the last major human dispersal to unpopulated lands. However, the relationship of these pioneers to the long-established Papuan people of the New Guinea region is unclear. Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data from three individuals from Vanuatu (about 3,100–2,700 years before present) and one from Tonga (about 2,700–2,300 years before present), and analyse them with data from 778 present-day East Asians and Oceanians. Today, indigenous people of the South Pacific harbour a mixture of ancestry from Papuans and a population of East Asian origin that no longer exists in unmixed form, but is a match to the ancient individuals. Most analyses have interpreted the minimum of twenty-five per cent Papuan ancestry in the region today as evidence that the first humans to reach Remote Oceania, including Polynesia, were derived from population mixtures near New Guinea, before their further expansion into Remote Oceania 2–5. However, our finding that the ancient individuals had little to no Papuan ancestry implies that later human population movements spread Papuan ancestry through the South Pacific after the first peopling of the islands. Pacific islanders today derive from a mixture of two highly divergent ancestral populations 3. The first ancestral modern human population arrived in island southeast Asia more than 40,000 years before present (bp), and contributed to the ancestry of both indigenous Australians and Papuans, and hence to other Pacific
Tonga was unique in the prehistoric Pacific for developing a maritime state that integrated the a... more Tonga was unique in the prehistoric Pacific for developing a maritime state that integrated the archipelago under a centralized authority and for undertaking long-distance economic and political exchanges in the second millennium A.D. To establish the extent of Tonga's maritime polity, we geochemically analyzed stone tools excavated from the central places of the ruling paramounts, particularly lithic artifacts associated with stone-faced chiefly tombs. The lithic networks of the Tongan state focused on Samoa and Fiji, with one adze sourced to the Society Islands 2,500 km from Tongatapu. To test the hypothesis that nonlocal lithics were especially valued by Tongan elites and were an important source of political capital, we analyzed prestate lithics from Tongatapu and stone artifacts from Samoa. In the Tongan state, 66% of worked stone tools were long-distance imports, indicating that interarchipelago connections intensified with the development of the Tongan polity after A.D. 1200. In contrast, stone tools found in Samoa were from local sources, including tools associated with a monumental structure contemporary with the Tongan state. Network analysis of lithics entering the Tongan state and of the distribution of Samoan adzes in the Pacific identified a centralized polity and the products of specialized lithic workshops, respectively. These results indicate that a significant consequence of social complexity was the establishment of new types of specialized sites in distant geographic areas. Specialized sites were loci of long-distance interaction and formed important centers for the transmission of information, people, and materials in prehistoric Oceania.
Monumental construction is commonly associated with the rise of complex societies and frequently ... more Monumental construction is commonly associated with the rise of complex societies and frequently supported the ceremonies and ideologies that were instrumental in the creation of the new social order. Recent fieldwork at Heketa in eastern Tongatapu recorded stone-built platforms for houses and seats, and a three-tiered tomb and trilithon. Tongan tradition and archaeology combine to show that these were the setting for new ceremonies instituted by the emergent Tu’i Tonga lineage in the fourteenth century AD as they laid the foundations of the early Tongan chiefdom. Key to their success were activities that emphasised the sacred origins of the living
Tu’i Tonga, including the drinking of kava and the presentation of first fruits to the chiefs.
Recent LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey in Tonga has documented a dense and complex arc... more Recent LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey in Tonga has documented a dense and complex archaeological landscape, particularly on the principal island of Tongatapu. Among the features revealed by the LiDAR are a profusion of earthen mounds, most of which are associated with residence, sporting, or burial in the period 1000e1850 CE. For identification and mapping of the mounds we use and evaluate two automated feature extraction (AFE) techniques, object-based image analysis and an inverted pit-filling algorithm (" iMound "). Accuracy of these methods was measured using an F1-score (harmonic mean of precision and recall). Variable AFE results indicate that continual and iterative fine-tuning is required. Successful mapping of some 10,000 mounds on Tongatapu reveals a distinct spatial structure that relates to traditional land division and tenure.
New research indicates that the royal tomb Paepaeotelea was built c. AD 1300–1400, more than 200... more New research indicates that the royal tomb Paepaeotelea was built c. AD 1300–1400, more than 200 years earlier than its traditional association with Uluakimata I, who ruled when the Tongan polity was at its greatest extent. The large and stylistically complex tomb marks a dramatic increase in the scale of mortuary structures. It represents a substantial mobilisation of labour by this early archaic state, while the geochemical signatures of stone tools associated with the tomb indicate long-distance voyaging. The evidence suggests that the early Tongan state was a powerful and geographically expansive entity, able to rapidly organise and command the resources of the scattered archipelago.
Neolithic arrival in the Pacific involved, as in other parts of the world, the translocation of d... more Neolithic arrival in the Pacific involved, as in other parts of the world, the translocation of domesticated plants and animals by pottery-making cultures in prehistory. Globally uncommon, though, was the abandonment of pottery on some islands and the extirpation of the pig (Sus scrofa/verrucosus) and dog (Canis familiaris) -the two largest mammalian quadrupeds introduced to Oceania -from the subsistence and cultural systems. This paper examines the extirpation of pigs from the Palau Islands as a case study to understand why an important domesticate has such an uneven prehistoric distribution. When suids are fed agricultural produce required to sustain the human population, it has been proposed that competition and extirpation will result, especially on small islands with limited arable land. However, pigs are considered problem animals in many environments because of the damage they cause to horticultural production, particularly the effects of free-range pigs on gardens and plantations. It is suggested that extirpation and low-level animal keeping are a response to the threat that pigs pose to plant food yields and social relations.
The role of AD 1300 climate change in widespread societal change in Palau and the Pacific Basin h... more The role of AD 1300 climate change in widespread societal change in Palau and the Pacific Basin has recently been debated by Fitzpatrick (2010, 2011) and Nunn and Hunter-Anderson (2011). The central proposition examined here is the link between a sealevel driven food crisis and the outbreak of conflict, which is hypothesized in the AD 1300 event model to have led people to shift from unprotected coastal parts of large islands (e.g. volcanic Babeldaob) to more readily defensible offshore islands (e.g. limestone ‘Rock Islands’) during the transition between the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Revision of radiocarbon dates from village sites in the Rock Islands suggests instead that permanent settlements were established on small offshore islands during the MWP with village abandonment during the LIA. Palaeoclimate records from equatorial islands show that during the LIA Palau had less rainfall from the southward movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The abandonment of multiple limestone islands by a population estimated at 4000–6000 people may have been influenced by decreased precipitation and more tentatively from a decline in near-shore marine foods as a result of sea-level fall.
On Tongatapu the central place of the rising kingdom of Tonga developed in the fourteenth and fif... more On Tongatapu the central place of the rising kingdom of Tonga developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Marked out as a monumental area with a rock-cut water-carrying ditch, it soon developed as the site of a sequence of megalithic tombs, in parallel with the documented expansion of the maritime chiefdom. The results of investigations into these structures were achieved with minimum intervention and disturbance on the ground, since the place remains sacred and in use.
Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania – associated with ... more Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania – associated with Austronesian-speaking Lapita culture – were almost completely East Asian, without detectable Papuan ancestry. Yet Papuan-related genetic ancestry is found across present-day Pacific populations, indicating that peoples from Near Oceania have played a significant – but largely unknown – ancestral role. Here, new genome-wide data from 19 South Pacific individuals provide direct evidence of a so-far undescribed Papuan expansion into Remote Oceania starting ~2,500 years before present, far earlier than previously estimated and supporting a model from historical linguistics. New genome-wide data from 27 contemporary ni-Vanuatu demonstrate a subsequent and almost complete replacement of Lapita-Austronesian by Near Oceanian ancestry. Despite this massive demographic change, incoming Papuan languages did not replace Austronesian languages. Population replacement with language continuity is extremely rare – if not unprecedented – in human history. Our analyses show that rather than one large-scale event, the process was incremental and complex, with repeated migrations and sex-biased admixture with peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago.
AbstrAct Warfare and conflict are associated with complex societies in Polynesia where competitio... more AbstrAct Warfare and conflict are associated with complex societies in Polynesia where competition and coercion were common in island chiefdoms. In prehistoric Oceania, Tonga was unique for an Archaic state that under the Tu'i Tonga dynasty established control over an entire archipelago from AD 1200 to AD 1799 prior to a prolonged period of warfare. Lidar data was used to identify earthwork fortifications over the entirety of Tongatapu and to examine the conflict landscape using lidar-derived attributes in tandem with archaeological and historical information. The distribution of earthwork defences indicates a complex history of conflict and political machinations across Tongatapu beginning with the Tu'i Tonga chiefs at Lapaha, but resulting in a mid-19th century civil war ending with a new royal dynasty. Fortifications offer important evidence of social-political change, and the heritage condition of earthwork defences, many of which are under threat from development, was assessed with lidar.
This volume explores the rich world of portable art in the Asia-Pacific, from the earliest exampl... more This volume explores the rich world of portable art in the Asia-Pacific, from the earliest examples of beads and other ornaments made by Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Australia and Southeast Asia to the staggering diversity of small carved objects and related artworks from the recent past and ethnographic present of Oceania. The book provides an important compilation of the many discoveries of portable art made at archaeological sites across this vast region. It also presents a stimulating discussion of what portable art is and what it means from a uniquely Australasian perspective, as well as from the viewpoint of those interested in the origin of art and the evolutionary history of our species.
A B S T R A C T Both archaeological and isotopic data document dietary changes over the first fiv... more A B S T R A C T Both archaeological and isotopic data document dietary changes over the first five centuries of Western Pacific island settlement, a time period beginning with the Lapita expansion about 3000 years ago. This change is marked by a decrease in marine food intake and an increase in vegetal food intake occurring in the Late Lapita/ immediately post-Lapita populations. The recent discovery of human burials at Talasiu (~2700–2600 cal. BP) in the Kingdom of Tonga opens new opportunities to assess this matter. We characterize the nature of the food items consumed by the Talasiu humans (n = 21) using collagen and apatite carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. We conducted an intra-Pacific comparison to examine the use of marine resources and the contribution of horticultural products and to look at the homogeneity of dietary practices within the Tongan group. Isotope results indicate a mixed diet of terrestrial and marine resources including a differential contribution of more specific marine foods (e.g., non-reef fish/inshore fish and shellfish). The Talasiu dietary pattern appears closer to that of the early Lapita population of Teouma than to other Late Lapita populations suggesting a different pattern of dietary change at the eastern end of the Lapita distribution. The slower rate of change may be due to the small size of both the island and the population, and also the additional potential role of social or cultural factors.
Ancestral Polynesian society is the formative base for development of the Polynesian cultural tem... more Ancestral Polynesian society is the formative base for development of the Polynesian cultural template and proto-Polynesian linguistic stage. Emerging in western Polynesia ca 2700 cal BP, it is correlated in the archaeological record of Tonga with the Polynesian Plain-ware ceramic phase presently thought to be of approximately 800 years duration or longer. Here we re-establish the upper boundary for this phase to no more than 2350 cal BP employing a suite of 44 new and existing radiocarbon dates from 13 Polynesian Plainware site occupations across the extent of Tonga. The implications of this boundary, the abrupt-ness of ceramic loss, and the shortening of duration to 350 years have substantive implications for archaeological interpretations in the ancestral Polynesian homeland.
Warfare is often considered as a key factor in the formation complex societies, but in the Pacifi... more Warfare is often considered as a key factor in the formation complex societies, but in the Pacific archaeological evidence for inter-group conflict during political centralization is rare. Most earthwork forts in Tonga are assumed to have been built in the nineteenth century when the traditional system of rulership collapsed, yet few forts on Tongatapu have been excavated or 14C dated. A fort in the chiefly center of the ancient Tongan state was mapped with theodolite and LiDAR, and excavated. Radiocarbon and traditional history indicate the fort known as the Lapaha Kolotau was made in the fourteenth century AD at the same time that chiefly architecture was being built at an unprecedented scale at the new elite center. The construction of an earthwork fort provides the first evidence that political centralization in Tonga was likely to have been contested.
The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long-dista... more The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long-distance ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km, and establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island SouthEast Asia and the Pacific. In 2010, Clark et al. published a paper discussing a number of radiocarbon dates from the Bapot-1 site on Saipan Island, but a disparity between charcoal and marine shell (Anadara sp.) results prevented the calculation of a definitive age for the site and left open the possibility that Bapot-1 was first settled as early as 3500 calBP. Here, we present new research using a combination of stable isotope (δ 13 C and δ 18 O) and 14 C information to demonstrate that A. antiquata from the lowest layers of Bapot-1 is affected by hardwaters. These new results indicate human arrival at Bapot-1 occurred around 3200–3080 calBP (1250–1130 BC). We recommend a similar isotopic evaluation for other sites in the Marianas that are dated by marine shell.
The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific around 3,000 yea... more The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific around 3,000 years ago 1 marked the beginning of the last major human dispersal to unpopulated lands. However, the relationship of these pioneers to the long-established Papuan people of the New Guinea region is unclear. Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data from three individuals from Vanuatu (about 3,100–2,700 years before present) and one from Tonga (about 2,700–2,300 years before present), and analyse them with data from 778 present-day East Asians and Oceanians. Today, indigenous people of the South Pacific harbour a mixture of ancestry from Papuans and a population of East Asian origin that no longer exists in unmixed form, but is a match to the ancient individuals. Most analyses have interpreted the minimum of twenty-five per cent Papuan ancestry in the region today as evidence that the first humans to reach Remote Oceania, including Polynesia, were derived from population mixtures near New Guinea, before their further expansion into Remote Oceania 2–5. However, our finding that the ancient individuals had little to no Papuan ancestry implies that later human population movements spread Papuan ancestry through the South Pacific after the first peopling of the islands. Pacific islanders today derive from a mixture of two highly divergent ancestral populations 3. The first ancestral modern human population arrived in island southeast Asia more than 40,000 years before present (bp), and contributed to the ancestry of both indigenous Australians and Papuans, and hence to other Pacific
Tonga was unique in the prehistoric Pacific for developing a maritime state that integrated the a... more Tonga was unique in the prehistoric Pacific for developing a maritime state that integrated the archipelago under a centralized authority and for undertaking long-distance economic and political exchanges in the second millennium A.D. To establish the extent of Tonga's maritime polity, we geochemically analyzed stone tools excavated from the central places of the ruling paramounts, particularly lithic artifacts associated with stone-faced chiefly tombs. The lithic networks of the Tongan state focused on Samoa and Fiji, with one adze sourced to the Society Islands 2,500 km from Tongatapu. To test the hypothesis that nonlocal lithics were especially valued by Tongan elites and were an important source of political capital, we analyzed prestate lithics from Tongatapu and stone artifacts from Samoa. In the Tongan state, 66% of worked stone tools were long-distance imports, indicating that interarchipelago connections intensified with the development of the Tongan polity after A.D. 1200. In contrast, stone tools found in Samoa were from local sources, including tools associated with a monumental structure contemporary with the Tongan state. Network analysis of lithics entering the Tongan state and of the distribution of Samoan adzes in the Pacific identified a centralized polity and the products of specialized lithic workshops, respectively. These results indicate that a significant consequence of social complexity was the establishment of new types of specialized sites in distant geographic areas. Specialized sites were loci of long-distance interaction and formed important centers for the transmission of information, people, and materials in prehistoric Oceania.
Monumental construction is commonly associated with the rise of complex societies and frequently ... more Monumental construction is commonly associated with the rise of complex societies and frequently supported the ceremonies and ideologies that were instrumental in the creation of the new social order. Recent fieldwork at Heketa in eastern Tongatapu recorded stone-built platforms for houses and seats, and a three-tiered tomb and trilithon. Tongan tradition and archaeology combine to show that these were the setting for new ceremonies instituted by the emergent Tu’i Tonga lineage in the fourteenth century AD as they laid the foundations of the early Tongan chiefdom. Key to their success were activities that emphasised the sacred origins of the living
Tu’i Tonga, including the drinking of kava and the presentation of first fruits to the chiefs.
Recent LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey in Tonga has documented a dense and complex arc... more Recent LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey in Tonga has documented a dense and complex archaeological landscape, particularly on the principal island of Tongatapu. Among the features revealed by the LiDAR are a profusion of earthen mounds, most of which are associated with residence, sporting, or burial in the period 1000e1850 CE. For identification and mapping of the mounds we use and evaluate two automated feature extraction (AFE) techniques, object-based image analysis and an inverted pit-filling algorithm (" iMound "). Accuracy of these methods was measured using an F1-score (harmonic mean of precision and recall). Variable AFE results indicate that continual and iterative fine-tuning is required. Successful mapping of some 10,000 mounds on Tongatapu reveals a distinct spatial structure that relates to traditional land division and tenure.
New research indicates that the royal tomb Paepaeotelea was built c. AD 1300–1400, more than 200... more New research indicates that the royal tomb Paepaeotelea was built c. AD 1300–1400, more than 200 years earlier than its traditional association with Uluakimata I, who ruled when the Tongan polity was at its greatest extent. The large and stylistically complex tomb marks a dramatic increase in the scale of mortuary structures. It represents a substantial mobilisation of labour by this early archaic state, while the geochemical signatures of stone tools associated with the tomb indicate long-distance voyaging. The evidence suggests that the early Tongan state was a powerful and geographically expansive entity, able to rapidly organise and command the resources of the scattered archipelago.
Neolithic arrival in the Pacific involved, as in other parts of the world, the translocation of d... more Neolithic arrival in the Pacific involved, as in other parts of the world, the translocation of domesticated plants and animals by pottery-making cultures in prehistory. Globally uncommon, though, was the abandonment of pottery on some islands and the extirpation of the pig (Sus scrofa/verrucosus) and dog (Canis familiaris) -the two largest mammalian quadrupeds introduced to Oceania -from the subsistence and cultural systems. This paper examines the extirpation of pigs from the Palau Islands as a case study to understand why an important domesticate has such an uneven prehistoric distribution. When suids are fed agricultural produce required to sustain the human population, it has been proposed that competition and extirpation will result, especially on small islands with limited arable land. However, pigs are considered problem animals in many environments because of the damage they cause to horticultural production, particularly the effects of free-range pigs on gardens and plantations. It is suggested that extirpation and low-level animal keeping are a response to the threat that pigs pose to plant food yields and social relations.
The role of AD 1300 climate change in widespread societal change in Palau and the Pacific Basin h... more The role of AD 1300 climate change in widespread societal change in Palau and the Pacific Basin has recently been debated by Fitzpatrick (2010, 2011) and Nunn and Hunter-Anderson (2011). The central proposition examined here is the link between a sealevel driven food crisis and the outbreak of conflict, which is hypothesized in the AD 1300 event model to have led people to shift from unprotected coastal parts of large islands (e.g. volcanic Babeldaob) to more readily defensible offshore islands (e.g. limestone ‘Rock Islands’) during the transition between the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Revision of radiocarbon dates from village sites in the Rock Islands suggests instead that permanent settlements were established on small offshore islands during the MWP with village abandonment during the LIA. Palaeoclimate records from equatorial islands show that during the LIA Palau had less rainfall from the southward movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The abandonment of multiple limestone islands by a population estimated at 4000–6000 people may have been influenced by decreased precipitation and more tentatively from a decline in near-shore marine foods as a result of sea-level fall.
On Tongatapu the central place of the rising kingdom of Tonga developed in the fourteenth and fif... more On Tongatapu the central place of the rising kingdom of Tonga developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Marked out as a monumental area with a rock-cut water-carrying ditch, it soon developed as the site of a sequence of megalithic tombs, in parallel with the documented expansion of the maritime chiefdom. The results of investigations into these structures were achieved with minimum intervention and disturbance on the ground, since the place remains sacred and in use.
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Papers by Geoffrey Clark
Tu’i Tonga, including the drinking of kava and the presentation of first fruits to the chiefs.
Tu’i Tonga, including the drinking of kava and the presentation of first fruits to the chiefs.