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Subpolar settlement in South Polynesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Atholl Anderson
Atholl Anderson*
Affiliation:
Centre for Archaeological Research, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia (Email: aja@coombs.anu.edu.au)
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Abstract

Archaeological research in the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand, has disclosed earth ovens, middens and flaked stone tools dating to the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries AD. This is the first site of prehistoric settlement in the outlying islands of the Subantarctic. Polynesians and their dogs survived on seals and seabirds for at least one summer. The new data complete a survey of colonisation in the outlying archipelagos of South Polynesia and show that it occurred contemporaneously, rapidly and in all directions from mainland New Zealand.

Keywords

Auckland IslandsPolynesiansSubantarcticcolonisation
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 306 , December 2005 , pp. 791 - 800
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

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