Excavating Eden: Missionaries, Material Culture, and Migration Theories in the History of Pacific Archaeology, 1797–1940

Abstract

From the arrival of the London Missionary Society in the Pacific in 1797, Anglophone missionaries began to engage with the prehistory of the region. By offering observations and published accounts, collecting material culture, and recording oral traditions and language terms, they contributed to emerging theories of the prehistory and origins of Pacific people. Some missionaries also presented their own interpretations of the available data. This thesis considers the involvement of Anglophone missionaries in the development of archaeology in the Pacific through the 19th and early 20th centuries and explores how and to what extent they were influenced by local and global frameworks. These frameworks included local artefact and knowledge networks as well as scholarly contributions by individuals and scientific societies. The thesis is framed around two individuals: Reverend Frederick Gatherer Bowie, active with the Presbyterian Church in Vanuatu (then New Hebrides), 1896–1933, and Reverend Charles Elliot Fox, active with the Melanesian Mission in Solomon Islands, 1902–1973. Evidence is drawn from the artefact collecting activities and writing of both men, and from Bowie's field photography. I demonstrate developments in missionary theories of prehistory over time, which can be traced alongside wider scholarly paradigm shifts and developing notions of 'time' as related to understandings of the human past. As well as exploring the agency of missionary researchers and their interlocutors, I seek to unravel the influence of interwoven knowledge networks on missionary engagement with Pacific prehistory, developing a narrative of the people and things involved. My research highlights the necessity of examining a range of actors and things circulating across different locales in the development of Pacific archaeology as a discipline. Such studies contribute to our understanding of how certain disciplinary concepts became popular and were replicated over time, and conversely how other theories fell out of favour. I argue that missionaries of different denominations, who may have previously been overlooked, have a place in this broader historical narrative. I also argue that missionary research resources have potential value for Pacific communities today, and that research presented in this thesis can facilitate access to such resources.