The Archaeology of Micronesia

This book presents the first book-length archaeological study of Micronesia.

Paul Rainbird (Author)

9780521656306, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 June 2004

314 pages, 43 b/w illus. 15 maps 1 table
24.4 x 17 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

"A thought-provoking work...Essential." L.A. Kimball, Western Washington University, CHOICE

This was the first book-length archaeological study of Micronesia, a collection of island groups in the Western Pacific Ocean. Drawing on a wide range of archaeological, anthropological and historical sources, the author explores the various ways that the societies of these islands have been interpreted since European navigators first arrived there in the sixteenth century. Considering the process of initial colonisation on the island groups of Marianas, Carolines, Marshalls and Kiribati, he examines the histories of these islands and explores how the neighbouring areas are drawn together through notions of fusion, fluidity and flux. The author places this region within the broader arena of pacific island studies and addresses contemporary debates such as origins, processes of colonisation, social organisation, environmental change and the interpretation of material culture. This book will be essential reading for any scholar with an interest in the archaeology of the Pacific.

1. Micronesian/macrofusion
2. Micronesians: the people in history and anthropology
3. Fluid boundaries: horizons of the local, colonial and disciplinary
4. Settling the seascape: fusing islands and people
5. Identifying difference: the Mariana Islands
6. A sea of islands: Palau, Yap and the Carolinian Atolls
7. 'How the past speaks here!': The Eastern Caroline Islands
8. Islands and beaches: the atoll groups and outliers
9. The tropical northwest Pacific in context.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Archaeology [HD]