Advances in Polynesian Prehistory: A Review and Assessment of the Past Decade (1993–2004)

The pace of archaeological research in Polynesia has intensified in recent years, resulting in more than 500 new literature citations over the past decade. Fieldwork has continued in such previously well-studied archipelagoes as Tonga and Samoa in Western Polynesia, and Hawai’i and New Zealand in Eastern Polynesia, and has expanded into previously neglected islands including Niue, the Equatorial Islands, the Austral Islands, and Mangareva. The emergence of Ancestral Polynesian culture out of its Eastern Lapita predecessor is increasingly well understood, and the chronology of Polynesian dispersal and expansion into Eastern Polynesia has engaged several researchers. Aside from these fundamental issues of origins and chronology, major research themes over the past decade include (1) defining the nature, extent, and timing of long-distance interaction spheres, particularly in Eastern Polynesia; (2) the impacts of human colonization and settlement on island ecosystems; (3) variation in Polynesian economic systems and their transformations over time; and (4) sociopolitical change, especially as viewed through the lens of household or microscale archaeology. Also noteworthy is the rapidly evolving nature of interactions between archaeologists and native communities, a critical aspect of archaeological practice in the region.

Building Capacity in Pacific Island Heritage Management: Lessons from Those Who Know Best

In recognition of the need to build capacity in heritage place management in the Pacific in 2004, UNESCO funded the development of the CD-ROM training program Conserving Pacific Places. The program attempted to address the lack of sustainable long-term outcomes from previous training programs ‘field-tested’ by Pacific Island heritage managers. This not only provided feedback on modifications to the Australian training model required to make it appropriate and useful in the Pacific Island context but gave voice to shared regional issues and concerns in Pacific Island heritage conservation through the writing of the Smith (2004).     

Unmasking the Essential Realities of COVID-19: The Pasifika Community in the Salt Lake Valley

Pacific Islanders in diaspora are disproportionately contracting COVID-19, experience hospitalization and develop complications. In Utah, Pacific Islanders have the highest contraction rate in the state. Pacific Islanders constitute only 2% of the state's population, but represent 4% of the those infected with COVID-19, begging the question how we might explain the high rates of contraction? As community engaged scholars and practitioners, we offer discussion, insight, and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic affecting Pacific Islanders in Utah. Grounding this discussion is a history of the Pacific Islander community as an essential workforce that dates back to the 1850s, before statehood. We argue that historical discrimination against these early Pacific Islanders shaped the way this group is racialized as essential laborers today. The authors offer this assertion along with practices and protocols that honour cultural norms of socialization, which we see is the pathway to provide safe measures that are relevant to the Utah Pasifika community.     

Australia’s Detention Centres on Manus Island and Nauru: An End of Constructive Pacific Engagement?

The ‘Pacific Solution’ of transporting asylum seekers who arrive by boat in Australian waters to detention centres on Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has attracted considerable international attention. Most of this has focused on the treatment of those detained and the morality, practicality and sustainability of Australian refugee policy. In this issue of ‘Pacific Currents’, we focus on the consequences for the Island nations. This article sets the scene for articles on Nauru and Manus Island by: 1. outlining the policy debates that led to the two phases of the ‘Pacific Solution’; 2. assembling data covering the numbers and costs involved; and 3. exploring the policy options in the wake of the PNG Supreme Court’s April 2016 ruling that the Manus Island centre was in violation of the constitution. All three papers are particularly concerned to explore the domestic political and legal ramifications of the centres for Nauru and PNG, and to examine the impact on Australia’s reputation in the Pacific region.     

试论东方学理论视野中的“夷学”构建

文化研究的重要目的之一是探讨文化创造的可能性机制。在西方,萨义德东方学理论的提出,对于西方文化语境中东西方文化关系的反思有极其重要的现实意义,对于我们用以分析和反思以夏文化为主流的中原文化跟周边偏远地区的文化关系亦有着重要的启示意义。但由于文化背景的差异,东方学理论限于对抗性、批判性的局限,向中国的文化现实提出了创造性地创建新型文化关系理论的要求。本文从东方学理论入手,论证了“夷学”提出的理论必要性和现实性,并且论述了“夷学”与文化创造的思维模式与内在联系。     

West Papua,Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: competing logics in regional and international politics

The idea of a shared Melanesian identity has been consolidated over the last three decades or so through the most important subregional organisation in the South-West Pacific—the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The solidarity of this group has been strained over various issues from time to time, but none is as fraught as the Indonesian occupation of what is commonly known as West Papua, whose indigenous Papuan people are ethnically Melanesian. In addition to recounting the Indonesian takeover of West Papua in the context of the dynamics of decolonisation, the Cold War and early regional development, the article examines the emergence of Melanesian identity and the MSG, before considering more recent developments. These focus on a recent bid by West Papuans for MSG membership, key aspects of Indonesia's role in the Melanesian subregion, and the extent to which these developments highlight competing logics in regional and international politics.     

Purposeful commingling of adult and child cranial elements from the Chelechol ra Orrak Cemetery,Palau

Continued excavation in 2007 of the early (ca. 2000–3000 calBP) cemetery at Chelechol ra Orrak in Palau, Micronesia revealed the remains of at least six individuals, adding to a minimum number of at least 25 other mostly fragmented individuals recovered in previous years. Of particular interest was the discovery of two isolated adult partial crania one of which, when emptied of sandy matrix, was found to contain a complete child's frontal bone. Here we explore the possibility that the placement of the skulls, particularly the commingling of the adult and child cranial elements, was done purposefully and discuss its significance for early Pacific mortuary behaviours. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The ‘walking’ megalithic statues (moai) of Easter Island

Explaining how the monumental statues (moai) of Easter Island were transported has remained open to debate and speculation, including their resource expenditures and role in deforestation. Archaeological evidence including analysis of moai variability, particularly those abandoned along ancient roads, indicates transport was achieved in a vertical position. To test this proposition we constructed a precise three-dimensional 4.35 metric ton replica of an actual statue and demonstrate how positioning the center of mass allowed it to fall forward and rock from side to side causing it to ‘walk.’ Our experiments reveal how the statue form was engineered for efficient transport by a small number of individuals.     

Applied Anthropology and Interwar Internationalism: Felix and Marie Keesing and the (White) Future of the ‘Native’ Pan-Pacific

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns transnational and international debate about the function of education as a progressive force in modernising colonial and race relations. It focuses on aspects of the published work and careers of New Zealanders Felix and Marie Keesing in the interwar and early post-war years in order to investigate the role these debates played in imagining new processes of adaptation and cohabitation in the settler/colonial Pacific. The paper argues that transnational networks were crucial to that project: as internationally recognised anthropologists, during the interwar years the Keesings were involved in the Institute of Pacific Relations and the Pan-Pacific Women's Association, operating out of Honolulu. Through these communities of expertise, the couple sought to promote and ultimately popularise the contemporary idea that ‘applied anthropology’ would be essential to modernising the norms of governance between ‘native peoples’ and Western citizen-subjects.     

Kelp Highways,Siberian Girls in Maui,and Nuclear Walruses: The North Pacific in a Sea of Islands

ABSTRACT

Epeli Hau‘ofa's definition of the Pacific as a ‘sea of islands' should be extended to the Indigenous history of the North Pacific Ocean. Several themes prominent in the history of Oceania – such as humans' orientation towards the ocean, the complex ways in which European and Indigenous histories mixed in the colonial era, and the notion of vast, interconnected spaces – apply to North Pacific history as well. This essay looks at the ways in which the history of the Russian Far East and Alaska could be written as Pacific history and integrated into histories of Oceania. Such an integration would provide numerous benefits for historians and activists in the North Pacific. Some important topics in the history of these northern regions, such as the interdependence of human and natural systems, could also enrich historiography in Oceania.