Mortuary patterns in burial caves on Mangaia,Cook Islands

The behavioural, cultural, and political implications of archaeological human remains in non‐mortuary, possibly culinary, contexts requires that we understand the range of mortuary practices in a particular region. Although several rockshelter sites on Mangaia, Cook Islands have yielded burned, fragmentary human bones in earth ovens that seem to support archaeological models and ethnohistoric accounts of ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, the absence of data on the range of Mangaian mortuary patterns obscures these interpretations. We describe burial patterns based on 40 above‐ground interments representing at least 92 individuals in caves of Mangaia, Cook Islands, in order to begin to develop an island‐wide perspective on mortuary patterns. Sampling both pre‐ and post‐European contact sites we found that multiple interments dominate probable pre‐contact burials (73%, 19 of 26) and single interments dominate post‐contact contexts (80%, eight of ten burials), probably reflecting the influence of Christianity on mortuary ritual. Subadults were more frequent in all post‐contact contexts suggesting alternative burial places, probably church cemeteries, for adults. Burial cave remains are broadly consistent with ethnohistoric accounts of interment in caves, however, they also illustrate additional burial practices and differences between time periods, such as primary body position and the role of multiple‐individual interments, which are not discussed ethnohistorically. The mortuary practices in Mangaian burial caves differ from burials associated with marae and seem completely unrelated to the presence of highly fragmentary and burnt human remains in pre‐contact rockshelter middens elsewhere on the island. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sailing virtual canoes across Oceania: revisiting island accessibility

Understanding sailing conditions is a basic requirement for understanding the two periods of settlement of the distant islands of Oceania, initially from the Bismarck Islands off New Guinea as far as Samoa and later from Samoa throughout East Polynesia. The question of a “navigational threshold” between these two worlds is the focus of this paper. A computer simulation is presented that quantifies the difficulty of sailing virtual canoes in the differing wind conditions in both areas. The model demonstrates substantial differences in ease of voyaging up to and beyond Samoa. That this measure is so markedly different between these two worlds gives support for the hypothesised pause between the discovery and settlement of islands West and East of Samoa.     

Sex and Sensibility: Margaret Mead's Descriptive and Rhetorical Ethnography

Anthropologists and historians encounter similar problems of analysis when attempting to decipher situations of first contact between Europeans and Oceanians and the resulting long-term historical processes these contacts triggered. Considering intercultural contact situations in Oceania, I stress the need to integrate anthropology and history to analyze such situations effectively.     

Chinese Aid in the South Pacific: Linked to Resources?

Abstract

China’s emergence as a global development actor has implications for developing countries and “traditional” donor agencies. Its current provision of foreign aid and other forms of development assistance to developing countries throughout the world presents both opportunities and challenges for all actors. At the same time, China’s growing need for natural resources and its policy of securing access through state-led “resource diplomacy” are causing concern. While most scholars and commentators are focused on the “China in Africa” dimension, China’s engagement in the South Pacific region has also been growing rapidly over the past decade and offers some interesting and unique insights. This article examines the dynamics of China’s provision of foreign aid and its quest for natural resources in the South Pacific region, with comparative references to other regions. Drawing particularly upon interviews and site visits in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, it argues that although major commercial resource contracts do appear to be supported by Chinese Government assistance, resources deals are not explicitly part of Chinese foreign aid in the region.     

Rational,reverential or experimental? The politics of electoral reform in Oceania

Oceania, with the exception of New Zealand, has received little comparative attention in studies of electoral reform. This article uses evidence from Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Nauru, as well as New Zealand and Australia, in order to: understand the process of electoral reform at national and regional levels; examine variation in the process and consider whether theories of electoral reform from elsewhere apply to Oceania. It finds that electoral reform is a highly complex process that is influenced by the self-interest of parties, democratic values and diffusion.

除了新西兰,不大有人从比较选举改革的角度关注大洋洲。本文使用斐济、汤加、巴布亚新几内亚、瑙鲁以及新西兰和澳大利亚的资料,目的是在国家和地区的层面上理解选举改革的过程;探讨过程中的变异,并思考其他地方的选举改革理论是否适用于大洋洲。     

Investigating shellfish deposition and landscape history at the Natia Beach site,Fiji

The relationship between environmental variation and subsistence practices is a central point of discussion in much Oceanic archaeology. While human predation can significantly reduce prey populations, environmental variation also contributes to reductions in prey abundance, possibly leading to increased human competition and resource scarcity. At the Natia Beach site, Nacula Island, Fiji, geoarchaeological evidence suggests that coastal progradation began soon after initial occupation of the coastal plain. Additionally, at approximately 650 BP a marked increase in clay and silt deposition occurred. Changes in coastal geomorphology may be explained by landscape response to regional Mid-Holocene sea level fall combined with human induced soil erosion due to upland settlement. Smaller scale environmental changes associated with climate variability may have also played a role. Additionally, landscape change appears to have had a measurable impact on local nearshore mollusks that are sensitive to high levels of water turbidity. Minor evidence of human exploitation is observable in this shellfish assemblage, although changes in predation pressure may have allowed shellfish populations to recover. Increased ceramic diversity and fortified settlements also appear at approximately 650 BP on Nacula and other parts of Fiji. The suite of changes at Natia may be explained by processes of regional and local environmental changes, and human adaptation in terms of subsistence, spatial organization, and competition.     

Emotions and the Relevance of the Past: Historicity and Ethnicity Among the Banabans of Fiji

This article treats the ability emotions have to point up the relevance of past events and so structure consciousness of history. It shows how knowledge of the past is embodied via the agency of emotions. The case study looks at how history is given emotional expression among the Banabans, a group stemming from Banaba Island in central Oceania and later resettled in Fiji. Under the hegemony of Western “regimes of historicity”, the Banabans created a new specific consciousness of history, transforming in the process themselves and their relationships with others. By analyzing several of the channels (oral, artistic, performative) via which Banabans vent their history, the article shows how they articulate knowledge of the past—underscored as relevant by emotions—with awareness of their ethnicity in the past and present. It is argued that emotions are involved in forming historicity, a process that is marked, not least, by reciprocity.     

Testing the human factor: radiocarbon dating the first peoples of the South Pacific

Archaeologists have long debated the origins and mode of dispersal of the immediate predecessors of all Polynesians and many populations in Island Melanesia. Such debates are inextricably linked to a chronological framework provided, in part, by radiocarbon dates. Human remains have the greatest potential for providing answers to many questions pertinent to these debates. Unfortunately, bone is one of the most complicated materials to date reliably because of bone degradation, sample pre-treatment and diet. This is of particular concern in the Pacific where humidity contributes to the rapid decay of bone protein, and a combination of marine, reef, C₄, C₃ and freshwater foods complicate the interpretation of ¹⁴C determinations. Independent advances in bone pre-treatment, isotope multivariate modelling and radiocarbon calibration techniques provide us, for the first time, with the tools to obtain reliable calibrated ages for Pacific burials. Here we present research that combines these techniques, enabling us to re-evaluate the age of burials from key archaeological sites in the Pacific.     

Ancient Solomon Islands mtDNA: assessing Holocene settlement and the impact of European contact

Archaeologists, linguists and geneticists generally agree that Near Oceania was subject to two major pulses of human dispersal: a Pleistocene occupation around 40,000 BP and a Late-Holocene migration at 3500 BP commonly associated with the Austronesian expansion out of Taiwan. The latter led to the development of the Lapita cultural complex in the Bismarck Archipelago which resulted in the settlement of Remote Oceania and there are a variety of competing models (express train, slow boat, entangled bank, etc.) used to explain this. Recent genetic studies have focused on this issue, but none of them have taken into consideration the bias possibly introduced by 19th-century historically reported population decline caused by European contact.