{"title":"From gathering to discard and beyond: Ethnoarchaeological studies on shellfishing practices in the Solomon Islands","authors":"A. Oertle, K. Szabó","doi":"10.22459/TA51.2019.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/TA51.2019.10","url":null,"abstract":"Shell-bearing archaeological sites in tropical island environments are subject to various environmental and human influences, which affect how a site forms and transforms over time. The immense range of species diversity in the tropical Indo-Pacific marine province means that marine subsistence practices may vary between different environmental zones and groups of people. Shellfish are an important coastal resource that is relatively low cost to gather and process. Island Melanesia is rich in zones of mangrove forest, intertidal rocky shore, sandy beaches and reefs, all of which support certain species of shellfish that can be used for food or raw materials for artefact production.","PeriodicalId":273724,"journal":{"name":"Archaeologies of Island Melanesia: Current approaches to landscapes, exchange and practice","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134203270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Sand, David Baret, Jacques Bolé, S. Domergue, André Ouetcho, Jean‐Marie Wadrawane
{"title":"From test pits to big-scale archaeology in New Caledonia, southern Melanesia","authors":"C. Sand, David Baret, Jacques Bolé, S. Domergue, André Ouetcho, Jean‐Marie Wadrawane","doi":"10.22459/TA51.2019.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/TA51.2019.04","url":null,"abstract":"Following on from pioneering projects (Allen and Gosden 1991; Garanger 1972; Green and Cresswell 1976), Melanesian archaeology has, during the last three decades, seen massive developments. In every archipelago, a number of ambitious research programs were initiated in the 1990s (e.g. Bedford et al. 1999; Clark and Anderson 2009; Sand 1996; Sheppard et al. 2000; Summerhayes 2000) and carried on in the following decades, allowing us to broaden, sometimes exponentially, our knowledge of the long past of this part of Oceania. Sadly, in a period characterised by important economic development in the region with the construction of numerous international hotels and tourism-related facilities, new roads and airstrips, extensions of townships, factories and housing, and logging and mining, very few large-scale archaeological rescue excavations in the form of cultural resource management (CRM) programs have been carried out. Impact studies are non-compulsory or mostly neglected in Oceania. In this regard, clear differences can be identified between the archipelagos of the region. Some nation-states have at times allowed highly destructive economic projects like logging or mining without any previous archaeological studies, while in other instances, multimillion dollar development projects by international companies include a multi-year archaeological assessment of the heritage landscapes before development (e.g. Richards et al. 2016).","PeriodicalId":273724,"journal":{"name":"Archaeologies of Island Melanesia: Current approaches to landscapes, exchange and practice","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131029402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mummification of the human body as a vector of social link: The case of Faténaoué (New Caledonia)","authors":"F. Valentin, C. Sand","doi":"10.22459/TA51.2019.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/TA51.2019.11","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter details mummified bodies that were seated in braided baskets and displayed at the opening of a small rock shelter, on top of a karstic peak dominating an old village situated in the Faténaoué Valley (Témala-Voh, New Caledonia). These bodies call attention to a characteristic of Kanak, and more generally Melanesian, societies: the need for an extended physical connection with ancestors. This trait is exemplified by the burial practices of Ndani (Irian Jaya, Indonesia), Buang and Anga (Papua New Guinea) societies in the present day (Beckett and Nelson 2015; Vial 1936), as well as in the societies of the Torres Strait during the 19th century (Pretty 1969). Over the nearly 3000 years of its prehistoric and traditional Kanak history, the New Caledonia archipelago has seen the development of an exceptional diversity of burial traditions (Sand et al. 2003, 2008). While archaeological studies can identify differences between time periods, there is also clear regional variability in burial practices, body treatments and status-dependent mortuary rituals between contemporaneous communities and chiefdoms (Valentin and Sand 2001, 2008).","PeriodicalId":273724,"journal":{"name":"Archaeologies of Island Melanesia: Current approaches to landscapes, exchange and practice","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114890509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Axes of entanglement in the New Georgia group, Solomon Islands","authors":"T. Thomas","doi":"10.22459/TA51.2019.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/TA51.2019.07","url":null,"abstract":"Regional exchange networks of great variety and complexity are among the most studied phenomena in archaeological and ethnographic accounts of Island Melanesia. Malinowski’s (1922) pioneering ethnography of the kula system of southern Papua New Guinea produced an enduring image of exchange as foundational to Melanesian social life, and subsequent ethnographic efforts dedicated to elucidating the role of exchange in political structures, gender relations, ritual and symbolism (Leach and Leach 1983; Strathern 1988), have made lasting contributions to social theory. Archaeologists, for their part, have focused on identifying the range and pattern of exchange networks—from the expansive material transfers of the Lapita cultural complex (Kirch 1988; Summerhayes 2000) to the development of smaller but more intensive networks of later periods (Allen 1984).","PeriodicalId":273724,"journal":{"name":"Archaeologies of Island Melanesia: Current approaches to landscapes, exchange and practice","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125817075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}