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Estimating trajectories of colonisation to the Mariana Islands, western Pacific

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Scott M. Fitzpatrick  and
Richard T. Callaghan
Scott M. Fitzpatrick
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
Richard T. Callaghan
Affiliation:
2Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada
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Abstract

The colonisation of the Pacific islands represents one of the major achievements of early human societies and has attracted much attention from archaeologists and historical linguists. Determining the pattern and chronology of colonisation remains a challenge, as new discoveries continue to push back dates of earliest settlement. The length and direction of the colonising voyages has also led to lively debate seeking to trace languages and artefactual techniques and traditions to presumed places of origin. Seafaring simulation models provide one way of resolving these controversies. One of the most remote of these island groups, the Marianas, is shown here to have been settled not from Taiwan or the Philippines, as has been argued in Antiquity by Hung et al. (2011) and Winter et al. (2012), but from New Guinea or Island Southeast Asia to the south. It represents an incredible feat of early navigation over an ocean distance of some 2000km.

Keywords

PacificMariana Islandsseafaringcolonisationsimulation models
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 337 , September 2013 , pp. 840 - 853
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

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