Year: 2003
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The prehistory of Palau and other parts of western \nMicronesia has recently become important to debates \nabout the colonisation and pattern of cultural \ndevelopment in the west Pacific. The main reason for this \nhas been the suggestion that the antiquity of human \noccupation there might be much earlier than has been \nthought (e.g. Masse 1990), ilnd well before the dispersal of \nLapita culture from the Bismarck Archipelago to Samo,1, \nbetween 3300 and 2850 BP (Specht and Gosden 1998; \nAnderson and Clark 1999). Estimates for the settlement of \nthe Marianas now start about -1800 years BP, with Palau \noccupied at 4500 BP and Yap probably before 3200 BP \n(Dodson <rnd Intoh 1999; Wickler 2001). These older than \nanticipated dates (e.g. Milsse 1990) are significant because \nthey coincide approxunately with the spreild of a \neolithic cultural complex in island South East Asia \nchilracterised by use of rice, pig and dog, manufacture of \nred-slipped or paddle-impressed cernmics, along with \nother distinctive portable artefacts that do not occur in \npre-ceramic assemblc1ges of the region (Bellwood 2001 ). \nDirect evidence for the earliest settlement of the \nMarianas, Palau and Y<1p is, however, scarce, and has \nbeen largely inferred from the analysis of sediment cores \nwhich indicates anthropogenic activity eilrlier than the \narchaeological record In Palau these include the presence \nof charcoal particles, pollen from food plants like the \ngiant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma clw111isso11is), and an \nincrease in savannah plants at the expense of forest \ngrowth before 4000 BP (Athens and Ward 2001; Welch \n2001). While the palaeoenv1ronmental results have \nfurnished useful alternate colonisation chronologies there \nis a striking absence of early sites that allow us to identify \neither the origin and pattern of settlement m west \nMicronesia, or to investigate the colonisers' connection to \nearly Austronesian movements in Island South East Asia \nand the Lapita dispersal in Near and Remote Oceania. \nThis paper summarises recent investigations undertaken \non the islands of Angaur and Ulong (Fig. l) aimed at \nrecovering early cultural materials from Palau's sequence \nto clarify the archipelago's colonisation history. The \nearliest securely d,1ted and adequately reported cultural \ndeposits from Palau date to rn. 2300 BP (Welch 2001), and \nseveral reasons for an absence of sites older than 2500 BP \nhave been proposed.
Authors: Geoffrey Clark, Duncan Wright
Language: English
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2216631690