Micronesia

dc.contributor.authorClark, Geoffrey
dc.contributor.editorColin Renfrew
dc.contributor.editorPaul G. Bahn
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-10T22:55:24Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.date.updated2020-11-22T07:37:22Z
dc.description.abstractWhen European explorers of the Enlightenment encountered population differences among Pacific Islanders, a major and long-lasting division was drawn between Polynesians and Melanesians. While Polynesians inhabiting the eastern Pacific had a physical appearance, languages and cultural institutions suggestive of a relatively recent, common ancestry from Island Southeast Asia, Melanesians exhibited diverse sociobiological traits indicative of a much longer occupancy, in what the geographer Charles de Brosses in 1756 termed the equatorial �torrid zone�, that had been settled in the distant past by people of African origin. The different population origins (Asiatic and Negroid) and tenure length of the two groups in the Pacific were thought to divide Melanesians starkly from Polynesians (Tcherk�zoff 2003), and a simple binary model of human diversity was further developed in 19th-century socioevolutionary thought as a polar opposition between light brown�skinned, culturally advanced Polynesians and the dark-skinned Melanesians, who were condemned by authorities such as Dumont d�Urville (2003) as living in a primitive state of near-barbarism. Within this framework, the position of Micronesians was uncertain, but many early reports stated that western Micronesians had a physical appearance suggesting derivation from Island Southeast Asia, while the populations of central and eastern Micronesia were more diverse, but grouped closer to Polynesians than to Melanesians. Horatio Hale (1846) found the physical characteristics of Micronesians did not vary greatly from their neighbours in Polynesia (also Haddon 1909: 22), while d�Urville (2003) thought Micronesia was populated by a series of migrations out of the Philippines after Polynesia had been colonised. This would have migrants from Island Southeast Asia arriving in western Micronesia with subsequent dispersals to central and eastern Micronesia (Map 1.38.1), possibly through Kiribati and Tuvalu, to Polynesia. W. W. Howells (1973) followed P. Buck (1958) in suggesting that early Polynesians had probably come from Micronesia, given the greater physical similarity of Micronesians and Polynesians to one another than either had to Melanesian populations.
dc.identifier.isbn9780521119931
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/60102
dc.publisherCambridge University Press
dc.relation.ispartofThe Cambridge World Prehistory Volume 1: Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific
dc.relation.isversionof1st Edition
dc.titleMicronesia
dc.typeBook chapter
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage621
local.bibliographicCitation.placeofpublicationNew York
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage614
local.contributor.affiliationClark, Geoffrey, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU
local.contributor.authoremailu9510963@anu.edu.au
local.contributor.authoruidClark, Geoffrey, u9510963
local.description.embargo2037-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.absfor210106 - Archaeology of New Guinea and Pacific Islands (excl. New Zealand)
local.identifier.ariespublicationu4455832xPUB522
local.identifier.doi10.1017/CHO9781139017831.042
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByu4455832
local.type.statusPublished Version

Downloads

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
01_Clark_Micronesia_2014.pdf
Size:
670.98 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
02_Clark_Micronesia_2014.pdf
Size:
2.43 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Back to topicon-arrow-up-solid
 
APRU
IARU
 
edX
Group of Eight Member

Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian National University acknowledges, celebrates and pays our respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region and to all First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.


Contact ANUCopyrightDisclaimerPrivacyFreedom of Information

+61 2 6125 5111 The Australian National University, Canberra

TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12002 (Australian University) CRICOS Provider Code: 00120C ABN: 52 234 063 906