Hostname: page-component-6b989bf9dc-mbg9n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-14T11:03:30.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avis, C., Montenegro, A. & Weaver, A.. 2007. The discovery of western Oceania: a new perspective. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2: 197—209.Google Scholar
Bechtol, C. 1963. Sailing characteristics of oceanic canoes, in Golson, J.(ed.) Polynesian navigation (Polynesian Society Memoir 34): 98—101. Auckland: Polynesian Society.Google Scholar
Blust, R.A.. 2000. Chamorro historical phonology. Oceanic Linguistics 39: 83—122.Google Scholar
Butler, B.M.. 1994. Early prehistoric settlement in the Mariana islands: new evidence from Saipan. Man and Culture in Oceania 10: 15—38.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T.. 1999. Computer simulations of ancient voyaging. Northern Mariner 9: 11—22.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T..2001. Ceramic age seafaring and interaction potential in the Antilles: a computer simulation. Current Anthropology 42: 308—313.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T.. 2003a. Comments on the mainland origins ofthe Preceramic cultures of the Greater Antilles. Latin American Antiquity 14: 323—338.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T.. 2003b. Prehistoric trade between Ecuador and west Mexico: a computer simulation of coastal voyages. Antiquity 77: 796—804.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T.. 2003c. The use ofsimulation models to estimate frequency and location of Japanese Edo period wrecks along the Canadian Pacific Coast. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 27: 62—82.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T.. 2008. On the question of the absence of Archaic Age sites on Jamaica. Journal ofIsland and Coastal Archaeology 3: 54—71.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T. & Bray, W.. 2007. Simulating prehistoric sea contacts between Costa Rica and Colombia. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2: 4—23.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T. & Fitzpatrick, S.M.. 2007. On the relative isolation of a Micronesian archipelago during the historic period: the Palau case study. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 36: 353—364.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T. & Fitzpatrick, S.M.. 2008. Examining prehistoric migration patterns in the Palauan archipelago: a computer simulated analysis of drift voyaging. Asian Perspectives 47: 28—44.Google Scholar
Callaghan, R.T. & Scarre, C.. 2009. Simulating the western seaways. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28: 357—372.Google Scholar
Carson, M.T.. 2008. Refining earliest settlements in Remote Oceania: renewed archaeological investigations at Unai Bapot, Saipan. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 3: 115—139.Google Scholar
Carson, M.T.. 2011. Paleohabitat of first settlement sites 1500 — 1000 BC in Guam, Mariana Islands, western Pacific. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 2207—2221.Google Scholar
Carson, M.T. & Kurashina, H.. 2012. Re-envisioning long-distance oceanic migration: early dates in the Mariana Islands. World Archaeology 44: 409—435.Google Scholar
Clark, G., Petchey, F., Winter, O., Carson, M. & O'Day, P.. 2010. New radiocarbon dates from the Bapot-1 site in Saipan and Neolithic dispersal by stratified diffusion. Journal of Pacific Archaeology 1: 21—35.Google Scholar
Dening, G.M.. 1963. The geographical knowledge of the Polynesians and the nature of inter-island contact, in Golson, J. (ed.) Polynesian navigation (Polynesian Society Memoir 34): 138—153. Auckland: Polynesian Society.Google Scholar
Di Piazza, A. & Pearthree, E.. 1999. The spread of the 'Lapita people': a demographic simulation. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 2(3). Available at: http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/2/3/4.html (accessed 16 April 2013).Google Scholar
Di Piazza, A., Piazza, P. Di & Pearthree, E.. 2007. Sailing virtual canoes across Oceania: revisiting island accessibility. Journal of Archaeological Science 344: 1219—1225.Google Scholar
Finney, B. 1979. Hokule a, the way to Tahiti. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.Google Scholar
Finney, B. 2003. Sailingin the wake ofthe ancestors: reviving Polynesian voyaging. Honolulu: Bishop Museum.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, S.M. & Callaghan, R.T.. 2008a. Magellan's crossing of the Pacific: using computer simulations to examine how oceanographic conditions influenced one of the world's greatest voyages. Journal of Pacific History 48(2): 145—165.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, S.M. 2008b. Seafaring simulations and the origin of prehistoric settlers to Madagascar, in Clark, G. & Connor, S. O (ed.) Islands of inquiry: papers in honour of Atholl Anderson (Terra Australis 29): 55—66. Canberra: Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, S.M. 2009. Examining dispersal mechanisms for the translocation of chicken(Gallus gallus)from Polynesia to South America. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 214—223.Google Scholar
Gladwin, T. 1970. East is a big bird: navigation and logic on Puluwat Atoll. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Horvath, S.M & Finney, B.. 1969. Paddling experiments and the question of Polynesian voyaging. American Anthropologist 71: 271—276.Google Scholar
Howay, F.W. 1944. Some lengthy open-boat voyages in the Pacific Ocean. American Neptune 4: 53—57.Google Scholar
Hung, H-C., Carson, M.T., Bellwood, P., Campos, F.Z., Piper, P.J., Dizon, E., Bolunia, M.J.L.A., Oxenham, M. & Zhang, C.. 2011. The first settlement of Remote Oceania: the Philippines to the Marianas. Antiquity 85: 909—926.Google Scholar
Irwin, G.J. 1992. The prehistoric exploration and colonisation of the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Irwin, G.J. 2010. Pacific voyaging and settlement: issues of biogeography and archaeology, canoe performance and computer simulation, in Anderson, A., Barrett, J.H. & Boyle, K.V (ed.) The global origins and development of seafaring: 131—141. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Levison, M., Ward, R.G. & Webb, J.W.. 1973. The settlement ofPolynesia, a computer simulation. Canberra: The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1994. We, the navigators. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i.Google Scholar
Montenegro, A., Hetherington, R., Eby, M. & Weaver, A.J.. 2006. Modelling pre-historic transoceanic crossings into the Americas. Quaternary Science Reviews 25: 1323—1338.Google Scholar
Montenegro, A., Avis, C. & Weaver, A.J.. 2008. Modelling the pre-historic arrival of the sweet potato in Polynesia. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 355—367.Google Scholar
Pellett, M. & Spoehr, A.. 1961. Marianas archaeology: report on an excavation on Tinian. Journal of the Polynesia Society 70: 321—325.Google Scholar
Spoehr, A. 1957. Marianas prehistory: archaeological survey and excavations on Saipan, Tinian and Rota (Fieldiana: Anthropology 48). Chicago (IL): Chicago Natural History Museum.Google Scholar
U.S. Navy. 1995. Marine climatic atlas of the world. Asheville (NC): National Climatic Data Center.Google Scholar
Winter, O., Clark, G., Anderson, A. & Lindahl, A.. 2012. Austronesian sailing to the northern Marianas, a comment on Hung et al. (2011). Antiquity 86: 898–910.Google Scholar