Maritime interregional interaction in Micronesia: Deciphering multi-group contacts and exchange systems through time

Recent theoretical perspectives focusing on interregional interaction can help explain the evolution of western Micronesian societies. Data from ethnohistoric accounts, oral traditions, and more recently, archaeological investigations, document the interactions between culturally and linguistically distinct island groups in the northwest tropical Pacific. Here, I look at the nature and emergence of these interaction networks between the islands of Yap and Palau in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia and the implications they had for transforming indigenous lifeways, exchange systems, and sociopolitics. In particular, I discuss a major facet of these interaction spheres—the Yapese quarrying of their famous stone “money” disks in the Palauan archipelago.     

Human impacts on ancient shellfish: a 10,000 year record from San Miguel Island,California

We use measurements of more than 11,000 marine shells from 41 archaeological components to construct a 10,000 year record of human impacts on ancient mussel and abalone stocks on San Miguel Island, California. General reductions in the mean size of mussel and abalone shells gathered through time are attributed to growing human population and predation pressure. Based on comparison with historically documented changes in shellfish communities caused by the local extinction of sea otters in the 19th century, changes in mean shell size and the abundance of other shellfish species may have been facilitated by Native American predation on sea otters as early as 7500 years ago. Despite having measurable impacts on local ecosystems, Native Americans on San Miguel harvested huge quantities of shellfish throughout the Holocene. Such long-term harvests appear to have been sustained by an early emphasis on fishing at lower trophic levels, by periodically shifting village locations, and by intensifying the use of finfish and sea mammals through time. This pattern of “fishing up the food web” contrasts with many modern fisheries, suggesting that the study of ancient fisheries can help us better manage our own endangered coastal ecosystems.     

新中国成立初期渔业社会变迁的考察——以浙江省洞头列岛为例

新中国成立初期,浙江省洞头列岛一直处于人民解放军与国民党军对抗的最前沿。其间,为争夺对洞头列岛的控制权,两军进行了多次战斗。在这一战乱频仍、政权更迭的特定背景下,洞头列岛渔业社会深受影响,渔业的生产环境、渔业生产方式、渔产品购销方式和渔民思想观念等都发生了重要变化,从而使得整个渔业社会发生了历史性的变迁。     

A new late Oligocene to early Miocene species o Apatopygus (Echinoidea: Cassiduloida) from the Maltese Islands

The occurrence of Apatopygus gaudensis sp. nov. in the upper part of the late Oligocene (Chattian) Lower Coralline Limestone division, and the lower part of the early Miocene (probably late Aquitanian) Lower Globigerina Limestone division of the Maltese Islands (Central Mediterranean), is the first confirmed record of Apatopygus outside the Australia-New Zealand region. Apatotygus vincentinus (Tate, 1891) from the middle to late Eocene of southern Australia is the earliest known occurrence of the genus, possibly suggesting that Apatotygus may have evolved earlier in the Australasian region, or merely that it is yet to be discovered in pre-Oligocene strata in the Mediterranean area.     

Leadership in Absentia: Negotiating Distance in Centralized Solomon Islands

This article examines a tension at the heart of national leadership in Solomon Islands today: a conviction that national leaders need to spend more time in rural environments to better represent rural interests, needs and values, while having to be in town to access the individuals and organizations that, essentially, make them national leaders in the first place. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Honiara and the rural Lau Lagoon, Malaita, we are especially interested in how this tension shapes rural perceptions of the legitimacy of chiefs as national leaders. Given that development projects can only be negotiated in Honiara, where the required state institutions, international (N)GOs and major businesses are based, rural residents feel compelled to send their most important village leaders, especially clan chiefs, to town. However, the longer these leaders are away from their homes, the more they seem distracted by urban ‘luxuries’ and the less they appear committed to their rural homes. In particular, villagers complain about their chiefs' contributions to exchange relations. Villages, thus, find themselves in a double‐bind that exaggerates a broader ‘crisis of leadership’ alongside an urban‐rural divide which challenges the promise of chiefly leadership as solution to antipolitical sentiments and a centralized state.     

The Clanking of Medieval Chains: Extra-Judicial Banishment in the British Empire

Banishment in English law was circumscribed by the Magna Carta and habeas corpus and prohibited except by legal procedure. The Transportation Act of 1718 legalised exile and enshrined convictism in law. The case of Bancoult (No.2), 2008, which considered the banishment of the Ilois of Chagos Island in the 1960s, brought consideration of banishment into the twentieth century and opened the royal prerogative to modern scrutiny. What becomes clear from this case is that banishment relied on royal prerogative without resort to legal process and was surprisingly routine throughout the British Empire. This article considers the implications of this case and some of the wider history of banishment in the empire.     

The End of Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (2003–17)

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) ended in June 2017 after 14 years. It was an initiative of the Pacific Islands Forum authorized under the Biketawa Declaration of 2000, which enabled a regional response to crises in the region. Between 1998 and 2003, Solomon Islands had undergone a period usually called the ‘tenson’ in Solomons Pijin, or the ‘Tension’ or ‘Ethnic Tension’ in English, when government processes failed and two rival militia groups out of Malaita and Guadalcanal terrorized Honiara and its surrounds. Prime Minister Ulufa‘alu was removed in a de facto coup in 2000. Although all Pacific Islands Forum nations participated, Australia paid 95 per cent of the costs. This was the first time Australia and New Zealand had led a substantial intervention mission beyond their borders that was not under United Nations auspices. The article places Solomon Islands politics and governance issues into a 20-year perspective and examines the success and failures of RAMSI, which was far more adaptable than is usually admitted. The article also considers the appropriateness of the Westminster system to government in Solomon Islands.     

Veiqati Vaka Viti and the Fiji Islands Elections in 1999

ABSTRACT

The question of demographic decline in the Marquesas Islands is here reinvestigated through an integrated approach to the particular case of Ua Huka. We first attempt to propose a new population estimate for the period prior to European contact, thanks to an archaeologically based method that relies on the length of sleeping areas available in the housing structures recorded in the valleys. From this estimate, we then use ethnohistorical accounts to reassess local demographic evolution throughout the 19th century. This leads us to partly nuance the impact of Westerners, especially the introduction of diseases, which on Ua Huka appears to have been less critical than other factors such as sociopolitical conditions, including intense warfare, linked to unfavourable environmental conditions.     

Rebellion and Mutiny in the Mariana Islands, 1680–1690

ABSTRACT

The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s, culminating in the successful takeover of the island of Guam in 1688 by a group of mutineers led by a convict captain. In the context of ongoing campaigns of Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonisation, the actions of these mutinous soldiers placed the project of empire-building in the Marianas in serious peril. The events surrounding these mutinies have often been underplayed within a historiography that focuses on the violent nature of the Spanish presence in the Marianas. Nevertheless the soldiers’ mutinies of the 1680s add another perspective to this turbulent history. The experience of mutiny raises considerable questions about the nature of loyalty among ordinary soldiers to the project of empire-building in the Pacific. It demonstrates that Spanish soldiers – and often their Filipino counterparts – had the capacity to destabilise the imperial project from within.     

Providing University Education in Physical Geography Across the South Pacific Islands: Multi-modal Course Delivery and Student Grade Performance

Enormous distances across the vast South Pacific hinder student access to the main Fiji campus of the regional tertiary education provider, the University of the South Pacific (USP). Fortunately, USP has been a pioneer in distance education (DE) and promotes multi-modal delivery of programmes. Geography has embraced DE, but doubts remain about comparability of various modes of study. This paper offers a diachronic examination of final grade performance of undergraduate physical geography students learning via three different modes. Data collected over 10 years on the pass rates of >1300 students are analysed. Various influences on student achievement are highlighted.