Focusing on the historical development of Pacific Oceania, this second edition provides a comprehensive chronological narrative detailing the region's habitation over extensive periods. It raises essential questions that are significant not only to the understanding of Pacific Oceania but also to the broader field of global archaeology, making it a vital resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.
Focusing on the archaeological significance of the early Marianas, this book details the first human settlement of Remote Oceania around 1500 B.C. It highlights the remarkable achievement of long-distance ocean navigation, over 2000 km, to reach these isolated islands. The author presents findings from extensive field research, covering environmental contexts, site inventories, and artifacts such as pottery and stone tools. The work emphasizes the importance of these discoveries for understanding both Asia-Pacific archaeology and broader patterns of human migration.
The Mariana Islands in the Asia-Pacific Region
Landscapes have been fundamental to the human experience world-wide and throughout time, yet how did we as human beings evolve or co-evolve with our landscapes? By answering this question, we can understand our place in the complex, ever-changing world that we inhabit. This book guides readers on a journey through the concurrent processes of change in an integrated natural-cultural history of a landscape. While outlining the general principles for global application, a richly illustrated case is offered through the Mariana Islands in the northwest tropical Pacific and furthermore situated in a larger Asia-Pacific context for a full comprehension of landscape evolution at variable scales. The author examines what happened during the first time when human beings encountered the world’s Remote Oceanic environment in the Mariana Islands about 3500 years ago, followed by a continuous sequence of changing sea level, climate, water resources, forest composition, human population growth, and social dynamics. This book provides a high-resolution and long-term view of the complexities of landscape evolution that affect all of us today.