Introduction
This
article will briefly summarise the context of the Pacific by presenting it
through a geographical, geological, and cultural lense.
Divisions of the Pacific
Firstly,
it is important to address different divisions of the Pacific as these will
often be used in papers related to the archaeology of this region, as well as
this blog. Therefore, the first part will quickly introduce these divisions.
Oceania
The
term Oceania applies to islands of the Pacific and is the general term applied
to most of the Pacific. The islands this term encompasses varies from person-to-person,
but generally includes all of the Pacific, including part of Island South East
Asia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand (Kirch 2017: 4)
See
a different perspective on this term: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/2018701606/pacific-scholars-wants-the-name-moana-to-replace-oceania
Figure 1 The dispersal of the Pacific according to d’Urville (Kirch
2017: 5)
D’Urville’s Pacific Classification System
Dumont
d’Urville was a French Explorer who came into the Pacific and saw in his mind
based on skin colour as well as cultural observations three distinct cultural
groups. He used this observation to divide the Pacific accordingly (Clark 2003;
Kirch 2017: 3).
· Micronesia=
the tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean
· Polynesia=
the many Islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean
· Melanesia=
the black islands, referring to the occupants of New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia.
Today
it is problematic to view these divisions in the same racial tone. Firstly,
with recent archaeological discoveries in the last seventy years it has become
increasingly obvious that the Pacific is more diverse and interconnected than
three simple cultural divisions. Secondly, culture does not come from phenotypes
of one’s skin colour but is learned through shared social interaction. However,
despite these problems the terms are generally still used today as useful
neutral geographical divisions of Pacific regions (Clark 2003; Kirch 2017).
Green (1991)
Since
the late 20th century archaeologists have been aware of these
problems associated with previous classifications of the Pacific. Therefore,
Green (1991) suggested a new pair of terms to easily explain these geographical
divisions not based on culture or physical differences, but on location alone
(Kirch 2017: 4). These terms are useful for they avoid racial stereotypes and
are neutral (Clark 2013).
·
Near
Oceania: New Guinea and the rest of Melanesia.
·
Remote
Oceania: Polynesia and Micronesia.
The Geology of the Pacific
The
Pacific is made up of primarily of a large Pacific Plate, which makes up the
border for the Pacific-Ring-of-fire. This plate to the east borders the North
American plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Antarctic plate, and to the west the
Australian Plate and Philippine Plate. Along the borders of these plates is
where a lot of the Pacific Islands have formed in numerous ways (Kirch 2017;
Dickinson 2006).
Figure 2 The plates which make up the Pacific (Kirch 2017: 39)
These
islands come in four forms (Kirch 2017):
- Continental Islands: in the Pacific are large landmasses surrounded by water, they are on the boundaries of the Pacific Plate. These islands include New Guinea and New Zealand.
- High Volcanic Islands: created from volcanic masses on the Plate, they are slowly pushed to the surface by the plates pushing against each other. These islands include the Mariana Islands.
- Atolls: Eroded Volcanic Islands. Very common in northern Pacific.
- Coral Islands (Makatea Islands): Raised coral reef islands.
Figure
3 The Island Types, not including continental ones
(Kirch 2017 41)
The Cultural Origins of the Pacific
Today
the Pacific is a very culturally diverse place, a lot like the geology of the
islands themselves! But once upon a time the ancestors of these people came
from very similar place of origin, at least in the case of the Polynesians. The
story is a bit more complex when it comes to Micronesia and Melanesia. This
section will introduce the cultural origins of the Pacific which will be
explored in greater detail in other articles. But this common origin for people
in eastern Pacific paved the way for their cultures to naturally develop when
they arrived in these new islands.
Figure 4 The spread of language groups across the Pacific (Kirch
2017: 6)
Language
Linguistics
has shown that the Pacific has a very complex pre-contact history. The oldest
occupation of Near Oceania is found in New Guinea at about 50,000 BP (before
present day) (Allen and O’Connell 2020; Summerhayes 2019: 43). These
inhabitants which speak thousands of different languages all derive from the
Papuan Language family which spreads part-way into Indonesia, and then as far
east as the Solomon Islands, but does not pass into Remote Oceania (Blust 2019;
Kirch 2017: 6).
Around
4,000 BP Austronesian speakers began to move into northern Philippines from
Taiwan and then it gets very complicated. Austronesian is the language family
spoken by most on Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and has branches which broke off
from about 3,500 BP through several colonising episodes and moved into Oceania (Summerhayes
2000 and 2010; Carson et al 2013).
The
western Malayo-Polynesia is spoken in ISEA, which unique branches in the
Mariana Islands (Chamorro), and Palau (Palauan). Oceanic Language for the rest
of Oceania (Remote Oceania, and parts of Near Oceania) (Blust 2019; Kirch 2017:
6).
Figure 5 The subgroups of Polynesian Languages (Kirch and
Green 2001)
Genetic variation
Language
families show that Oceania is linked on many levels from Austronesian ISEA origins
and intermixing with Papuan populations to create a unique Lapita culture
showing the original divisions coined by d’Urville as being largely inaccurate
on this level. Genetic studies have further confirmed these links whilst also
helping highlight the cultural origins of these people. The Austronesian
speaking peoples generally also shared the same genetic groupings which could
be traced back to ISEA (Kirch 2017: 7-8).
One
interesting observation in the case of Austronesians coming in Near Oceania
about 3,250 BP is that they encountered Papuan peoples (Summerhayes 2010 and 2019).
They intermixed with these people before they moved into Remote Oceania,
although for the case of Palau and the Mariana Islands this was not the case
(Carson 2013).
What about archaeology?
Of
course, with people moving from place-to-place they also brought with them
material culture. This article will not go into detail about whole range of the
elements associated with Austronesian cultures, but the most well-known that is
worth briefly discussing the technology of pottery.
The
emergence of Austronesian people in Oceania was a huge transformation for the
region which had been settled for almost 50,000 years (Allen and O’Connell 2020;
Summerhayes 2019: 43; Sphect et al 2014). They were a widespread
cultural complex, which when they came into the Bismarcks and intermixed with
the Papuan preestablished cultures, gave birth to Lapita. The Lapita Cultural
Complex saw the settlement not just of Near Oceania, but also the colonisation
of vast islands in Remote Oceania. The Eastern Pacific and Northern Pacific was
colonised in a short period of time from when Austronesian came into the
Bismarck Archipelago. They were the ancestors of Polynesian societies.
How
can archaeology trace these origins?
The
simple answer is technology such as pottery.
Figure 6 Lapita pottery examples from Emirau Island in the
Bismarck Archipelago (Summerhayes 2019).
Lapita
pottery is a red-slipped dentate-stamped highly elaborate decorated ware. It
has been found in selected sites all over Oceania and was theorized to have been
born from a combination of Austronesian pottery technology of red-slipped wares
with simple stamped designs and the unique context of the Bismarcks (Specht et
al 2014).
Figure 7 The first dispersal of Austronesian expansion
into Remote Oceania from ISEA? (Carson et al 2013).
Archaeologists
trace this pottery technology from ISEA for it was not practiced by Papuan
peoples before the Austronesian populations came into Near Oceania. They see a
cultural development of Lapita in the Bismarck Archipelago with the development
of a new ware type which then moves east (Carson et al 2013; Specht et al 2014;
Summerhayes 2000).
Figure 8 Map of Lapita dispersals into Remote Oceania to
the east (Summerhayes 2019)
Why
are they so culturally diverse today?
Overtime
after Lapita populations settled into their new environments, they started to
develop their own cultural traditions based on different social developments.
This is the result of overtime becoming less dependent on their homeland they
started to focus on their local environment and adapted to it. In pottery one
sees several things taking place, decoration becomes less elaborate and then
eventually in some regions disappears entirely, whilst others continue it. It
all comes down to the islands becoming dependent on their own ability to survive
and take care of themselves. They were not isolated from other islands and
continue to trade and travel between islands, but they did not share the same
wide-spread cultural complex that Lapita once had (Kirch 2017).
Summary
This
article has introduced several aspects of the Pacific. The geology and geography
through island types and how they have developed, and how people divide the
vast region. Additionally, the cultural side which shows how interconnected the
indigenous peoples of these regions are from their shared Austronesian
backgrounds and material cultures. In summary, the Pacific is a very large and
today diverse place as islands have developed their own unique cultural identities
overtime.
References
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and O’Connell and Jim Allen. 2020 A Different Paradigm for the initial
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