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Oscillating climate and socio-political process: the case of the Marquesan Chiefdom, Polynesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Melinda S. Allen
Melinda S. Allen*
Affiliation:
*Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand (Email: ms.allen@auckland.ac.nz)
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Abstract

Does climate affect behaviour and social process? In this case study, powerful scientific, anthropological and archaeological arguments are deployed to show that it can. The capricious climate of the latest centuries of the Marquesas Islands was instrumental in transforming a chieftain society into less hereditary and more flexible polities by the time of European contact.

Keywords

Marquesas IslandschiefdomclimateENSOIPOrisk and uncertainty
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 323 , March 2010 , pp. 86 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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