Archaeology in Oceania最新文献

In 1976, Yosihiko H. Sinoto conducted extensive archaeological survey and excavations on Reao Atoll, Tuamotu Archipelago as part of a Japanese, multi-disciplinary expedition led by Prof. Sachiko Hatanaka. Primarily excavating three marae and four habitation sites totalling ∼180 m², more than 25000 vertebrate remains were recovered. We report the jidentification and analysis of the fauna and contrast the inventories from secular and sacred contexts inferring the ritual use of pig, dog, turtle and tuna (Scombridae), as well as identifying relatively larger parrotfish (Scaridae), groupers (Serranidae), snappers (Lutjanidae), the Humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) and sharks/rays (Elasmobranchii) on marae. With a suite of 11 new AMS age determinations, we report the first directly dated precontact records for pig and dog and anchor the marae chronology possibly beginning in the thirteenth century. The 800 calBP dates imply that at least one of the Tuamotu atolls may have emerged nearly two centuries prior to the hypothesised ‘cross-over’ date of 600 BP. Consequently, the earliest chronology of atoll emergence along the 1000 km length of the Tuamotus might vary, thus providing landscapes for human colonisation at slightly different times which has implications for the speed and tempo of colonisation.

While pre-European settlement of Norfolk Island has been recognised for many decades, particularly the larger settlement site at Emily Bay, until this point there has been limited understanding, and very little systematic recording of evidence for inland settlement. This report presents the location, chronology, stratigraphy and artefact assemblage of a previously undocumented lithic production site from Mount Bates in the north-western uplands of Norfolk Island. The site dates to approximately 600–700 calBP. Excavations recovered over 1200 basalt artefacts, representing various stages in the adze production process. Sites such as this contribute to a better understanding of the range of activities carried out by Polynesian settlers of Norfolk Island, the stone tool economies of marginal Polynesia and the importance of local stone sources for understanding Oceanic settlement.

The advent of the dog is widely recognised as a major development in the economic organisation of ancient and contemporary hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. Although the utility of dogs in assisting recent historical and contemporary New Guinean hunters is commonly emphasised in anthropological discourse, to date there has been no critical evaluation of their actual contributions to hunting yields and nutrition. As a result, it remains unclear what significance the advent of hunting dogs is likely to have had for prehistoric economies in New Guinea. Here we present a comprehensive synthesis and review of the evidence for the use of dogs in hunting within New Guinea, focusing on the ways in which they assist; what kinds of game they help to capture; the degree to which they improve hunting yields and efficiency; and how this affects the taxonomic makeup and average body-size of game in human diets. We then apply the findings to a consideration of how dogs likely affected the prehistoric economies of New Guinea after their introduction in the Late Holocene. As reliance on hunting dogs tends to produce over-representation of a few mammal species within hunting yields, we identify potential zooarchaeological signatures for the use of dogs, and discuss excavated sites at which these may be visible. Dogs have a transformative effect on the outcomes of hunting in New Guinea's environments, and their novel use likely marked a significant development in the island's economies which has previously been underestimated.

In the Massim Island region of southeastern Papua New Guinea secondary interment of skeletal remains was widely practiced historically, but its social context and regional expression in the deeper past remains uncertain. In this paper the chronology of secondary burial on Panaeati Island is established indirectly by reconstructing the cultural and spatiotemporal association of 21 clay pots placed with human skeletal remains at Biniwaga Cave, coincidently establishing the first whole vessel typology of Southern Massim Combed Pottery (SMCP) and Southern Massim Pottery (SMP). Comparison with excavated pottery assemblages on Panaeati and elsewhere in the region demonstrates that the Biniwaga pots are consistent with SMCP and early SMP, dating from 740 to 470 calBP. Secondary burial practices on Panaeati are contemporary with those recorded elsewhere in the region and coincide with changes in pottery production centres. Compared to excavated pottery assemblages from contemporary sites, a relatively narrow range of pots are represented at Biniwaga. It is hypothesised that pots were selected to reflect the cultural affiliation of deceased individuals during a period of increasing inter-island interaction.

In this review of the Dark Emu debate we start out by summarising Bruce Pascoe's original work and Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe's critique. However, the majority of this contribution is to place this Australian-focussed debate into broader conceptual, methodological and evidential contexts generally associated with the investigation of early agriculture in other parts of the world. If we are to apply the term “agriculture” to Aboriginal plant management practices, then this requires a global, rather than a continental-centric comparative perspective. We argue debates regarding the character of plant exploitation practices on the Australian mainland, including whether they included forms of agriculture or experimental horticulture, have been hindered by a lack of terminological clarity, the absence of a methodological framework to assess empirically verifiable evidence, and – even more problematically – a lack of relevant data on the putative plants and practices involved. Here, terminology is clarified and a bottom-up, practice-based method is advocated for the assessment of recent (using oral, visual and written histories) and ancient (using archaeological, archaeobotanical and palaeoecological evidence) forms of food plant exploitation in Australia. The terminology and methodological framework are heuristically applied to three scenarios: (1) ethnographic and historical records for the exploitation of underground storage organs (USOs) on the Australian mainland; (2) historical documentation regarding the botany, potential human roles in dispersal, and Aboriginal exploitation of banana (Musa spp.), taro (Colocasia esculenta) and greater yam (Dioscorea alata) in northern Australia and (3) archaeobotanical evidence for the exploitation of USOs and other plants from The Top End.