From test pits to big-scale archaeology in New Caledonia, southern Melanesia

Abstract

Following on from pioneering projects (Allen and Gosden 1991; Garanger 1972; Green and Cresswell 1976), Melanesian archaeology has, during the last three decades, seen massive developments. In every archipelago, a number of ambitious research programs were initiated in the 1990s (e.g. Bedford et al. 1999; Clark and Anderson 2009; Sand 1996; Sheppard et al. 2000; Summerhayes 2000) and carried on in the following decades, allowing us to broaden, sometimes exponentially, our knowledge of the long past of this part of Oceania. Sadly, in a period characterised by important economic development in the region with the construction of numerous international hotels and tourism-related facilities, new roads and airstrips, extensions of townships, factories and housing, and logging and mining, very few large-scale archaeological rescue excavations in the form of cultural resource management (CRM) programs have been carried out. Impact studies are non-compulsory or mostly neglected in Oceania. In this regard, clear differences can be identified between the archipelagos of the region. Some nation-states have at times allowed highly destructive economic projects like logging or mining without any previous archaeological studies, while in other instances, multimillion dollar development projects by international companies include a multi-year archaeological assessment of the heritage landscapes before development (e.g. Richards et al. 2016).