Origins of Procellariidae Hunting in the Southwest Pacific

Small procellariids, mainly petrels, prions and shearwaters, were hunted at their rookeries in various parts of the southwest Pacific during the early historical era. The industries, some of which continue, arose from both traditional, indigenous, practices of prehistoric origin and subsistence necessity in early European settlements. The history and main features of the Tasmanian and southern New Zealand ‘muttonbird’ industries are described, together with brief summaries of those on Chatham, Raoul and Norfolk islands. Procellariid hunting occurred in two different situations, on isolated tropical islands, where its impact was often devastating, and on temperate islands associated with the East Australian Current, a western boundary current like the Gulf Stream. In the latter case, procellariid populations were very large and resilient to predation. In Tasmania, muttonbirds were taken for immediate consumption, but in New Zealand and other Polynesian islands there was preservation for storage. However, a common feature seems to have been the late development of systematic procellariid hunting, possibly because of the relative costs of access to the resource, although other explanations cannot be ruled out.     

Phosphatic mineralization of seeds from archaeological sites

Recent investigations of botanical material from archaeological sites have provided seeds and plant remains exhibiting a crystalline or semi-crystalline appearance. X-ray diffraction and partial chemical analysis have revealed that the particular plant materials had been replaced by calcium phosphate. Using systematic sampling and retrieval techniques a significant body of data has been accumulated. Most mineralized botanical evidence has been recovered from faecal deposits, in particular cess pits and garderobes, and has provided an important source of information about aspects of diet of past populations.     

Class Interests in Brazilian Archaeology

Archaeology is a practice that exists within various social contexts. As such, the way it is practiced is dependent upon the class interests of those who fund and undertake archaeological investigations. These interests in turn can be influenced by existing political regimes. In this article, I discuss how class interests have influenced the direction of Brazilian archaeology for the past century and a half.     

Doing Great Basin archaeology recently: Coping with variability

Great Basin archaeologists spent the 1970s and most of the 1980s tearing down the Desert Culture hypothesis without presenting compelling means for dealing with the empirical variability that made it untenable. Recent research seeks to understand this variability by examining the effect of key variables in extreme environmental contexts, especially in wetlands and at high altitudes, and by developing and refining models of optimality that anticipate variability as the local expression of general evolutionary ecological principles. Research on intraregional and ethnic variability has lagged behind—the former because it is said to be costly, the latter because it is problematical in theory.     

US-Australia-Indonesia Trilateral Security? Conditions for Cooperation

Since the 1950s, US strategic architecture in the Indo-Pacific has been premised on its hubs-and-spokes model of bilateral alliances and security partnerships. Since the 2000s the US began working toward forging deeper interrelationships between its regional allies and partners. The emerging strategy ultimately aims to interlink long-standing allies like Japan and Australia, and also non-traditional partners in the development of a security network capable of maintaining the regional ‘rules-based order.’ In analysing the US-led triangular Indo-Pacific geometry, this article considers the prospects of an evolving and substantive US–Australia–Indonesia security trilateral. It does so by utilising Miller’s ‘conditions for cooperation framework’ to test the likelihood of greater cooperation between these three states. These conditions include cultural similarity, economic equality, habits of international association, the perception of common danger, and greater power pressure. It concludes that while there remain strict limitations on any formal alignment between the ANZUS partners and Indonesia, there are convergent interests in key sub-strategic areas in the maritime space and thus a viable path toward greater trilateral cooperation but not, as yet, formal arrangements.