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Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches : Construire une archéologie anthropologique du monde insulaire polynésien
Abstract
Ce mémoire d'HDR expose mes travaux de recherche réalisés en Polynésie française depuis le début de ma carrière d'enseignant-chercheur.
M’inscrivant dans une démarche d’« archéologie anthropologique », je reviens sur mon parcours académique traversant plusieurs traditions de recherche et d’enseignement francophone et anglo-saxonnes. Mes travaux de recherche cherchent à mieux documenter les trajectoires historiques des sociétés traditionnelles de Polynésie centrale sur la longue durée et s’articulent principalement autour de plusieurs axes : 1. Peuplements, migrations et mobilité ; 2. Evolution des socio-écosystèmes insulaires ; 3. Dynamiques socio-politiques et religieuses des chefferies ; 4. Archéologie des pratiques funéraires. Afin d’expliciter mes orientations théoriques et méthodologiques, je m’appuie notamment sur le manuscrit original soumis au jury intitulé « Te ha’e o Atea – An Archaeological History of the Marquesas Islands », première synthèse sur l’archéologie de l’archipel marquisien. Ce travail s’accompagne d’une réflexion plus globale sur la pratique de l’archéologie en Polynésie française aujourd’hui.
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Niche construction theory has played a prominent role in archaeology during the last decade. However, the potential of niche construction in relation to agricultural development has received less attention. To this end, we bring together literature on the forms and sources of agronomic variability and use a series of examples to highlight the importance of reciprocal causation and ecological inheritance in trajectories of agricultural change. We demonstrate how niche construction theory can inform on emergent mutualisms in both inceptive and established agronomic contexts, the recursive relationships between humans and their agronomic environments, and bridges between the past and present.
Fishing has always played a major role in the subsistence of Polynesian communities. The excavations of archaeological sites tracing back to the earliest settlements provide multiple lines of evidence for marine exploitation. Among the recovered remains, are fishing gears associated with a rich deposit of marine fauna remains. In our study, we aim at reconstructing the historical dimension of fishing in central Polynesia from the fish bones assemblages. The systematic analysis of the faunal remains is uncommon in the region but, several archaeo-ichthyological studies have been carried out across the archipelagos since 1970. However, the lack of standardization of methodologies linked to the census of remains prevents any comparative approach based on fish inventories. Even so, the environmental profiles vary depending on the islands, and the distribution of fish species can change between the archipelagos. In this context, we attempt to define the strategies implemented by the communities to adapt their capture methods to the disparity of ichthyofauna encountered, as well as the evolution of fish exploitation over time. To address this issue, we chose to describe the development of fishing in two types of environments: an island without a lagoon (ua Huka, Marquesas Islands) and two with a lagoon (Agakauitai and Kamaka, Gambier Islands). We followed three goals: the first is to identify the diversity exploited within the study sites; the second concerns the ecological analysis of fishing by determining the targeted micro-environments; the third involves the interpretation of capture methods through the application of ethnographic data from traditional fisheries. A total of 15,000 fish remains was identified at various levels: at best from family to genus, and more rarely to species. The comparison of the diversity exploited between the two archipelagos shows that despite the environmental contrast, they share a common result: the near coast is the first place for fish supply. Several methods of capture have been implemented through time with the use of multiple fishing gears. We further hypothesized daily catches along the shore on foot or from a canoe, and potentially seasonal or sequential catches which could have taken place not far from the shore or in the near open sea, in the Marquesas. Finally, the diachronic analysis suggests that local fishing continues from the first installations until the Euro-pean contact and beyond. The approach developed during this thesis already brings new elements of discussion to the interpretative framework of fishing in central Polynesia.
We propose defining a field of research called ‘archaeoecology’ that examines the past ~60 000 years of interactions between humans and ecosystems to better understand the human place within them. Archaeoecology explicitly integrates questions, data, and approaches from archaeology and ecology, and coalesces recent and future studies that demonstrate the usefulness of integrating archaeological, environmental, and ecological data for understanding the past. Defining a subfield of archaeoecology, much as the related fields of environmental archaeology and palaeoecology have emerged as distinct areas of research, provides a clear intellectual context for helping us to understand the trajectory of human–ecosystem interactions in the past, during the present, and into the future.
Chapter 30 of the volume resulting from the international 2020 exhibition Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Histories of Archaeology in Oceania - free to download here:
https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/pacific/uncovering-pacific-pasts
Among those who shared an early interest in ancient cultural sites of
Central–Eastern Polynesia, it is noteworthy that an illustrator stands out as
being the only woman in this field in the nineteenth century: Adèle Garreau
de Dombasle, travelling through the Pacific with her companion Edmond
de Ginoux de la Coche during the 1840s (de la Grandville 2001; Jaillet 2021).This is remarkable as the history of anthropology in general, and
archaeology in particular, remains mainly populated by male characters,
both because of sociocultural historical constraints that long limited the
engagement of women in such fields and because of gender-biased narratives
in the history of science (Claassen 1994; Dotte-Sarout 2021; McDonald
2004; Watts 2007). Likewise, the essential role of Indigenous collaborators
has long gone unnoticed in the history of archaeology (Spriggs 2019).
In French Polynesia, accounts of the history of archaeology are similarly
limited in their inclusion of female and/or Mā‘ohi personages. However,
some of the most significant archaeological collections held by the Musée
de Tahiti et des Îles (MTI) contain items of material culture with particular
histories that can serve to illustrate the role of one such overlooked key
figure in the development of professional archaeology. Aurora Germaine
Tetunui Natua, whose life spanned most of the twentieth century, became
known as a ‘Tahitian scholar’ and her professional life was intertwined with
the history of Polynesian archaeology and its extended web of connections,
from Maupiti to Pape‘ete, Paris and Honolulu.
Knowledge of biodiversity in the past, and the timing, nature, and drivers of human-induced ecological change, is important for gaining deep time perspectives and for modern conservation efforts. The Marquesas Islands (Polynesia) are one of the world’s most remote archipelagos and illustrate the vulnerability of indigenous bioscapes to anthropogenic activities. Characterised by high levels of endemism across many biotic groups, the full spectrum of the group’s flora and fauna is nonetheless incompletely known. Several centuries of Polynesian settlement reshaped biotic communities in ways that are not yet fully understood, and historically-introduced mammalian herbivores have devastated the indigenous lowland flora. We report here on archaeological recovery of a diverse assemblage of plant and arthropod subfossils from a waterlogged deposit on the largest Marquesan island: Nuku Hiva. These materials offer new perspectives on the composition of lowland plant and arthropod communities pene-contemporaneous with human arrival. Bayesian analysis of multiple ¹⁴C results from short-lived materials date the assemblages to the mid-12th century AD (1129–1212 cal. AD, 95.4% HPD). Evidence for human activities in the catchment coincident with deposit formation includes Polynesian associated arthropods, microcharcoal, and an adzed timber. Plant macrofossils (seeds, fruits, vegetative structures) and microfossils (pollen, phytoliths) reveal coastal and lowland wet-moist forest communities unlike those observed today. Several apparently extinct taxa are identified, along with extant taxa currently constrained to high altitude and/or interior areas. A diverse inventory of subfossil arthropods—the first pre-18th century records for the islands—includes more than 100 distinct taxa, with several new archipelago records and one previously unreported for eastern Polynesia. The assemblages provide new insights into lowland Marquesan forest communities coincident with human arrival, and portend the considerable anthropogenic transformations that followed. These records also have implications for human colonisation of the Marquesas Islands and East Polynesia at large.
Quantitative cross-cultural databases can help uncover structure and diversity across human populations. These databases have been constructed using a variety of methodologies and have been instrumental for building and testing theories in the social sciences. The processes and assumptions behind the construction of cross-cultural databases are not always openly discussed by creators or fully appreciated by their users. Here, we scrutinize the processes used to generate quantitative cross-cultural databases, from the point of ethnographic fieldwork to the processing of quantitative cross-cultural data. We outline challenges that arise at each stage of this process and discuss the strengths and limitations of how existing databases have handled these challenges. We suggest a host of best practices for cross-cultural database construction, and stress the importance of coding source meta-data and using this meta-data to identify and adjust for source biases. This paper explicitly discusses the processes, problems, and principles behind cross-cultural database construction, and ultimately seeks to promote rigorous cross-cultural comparative research.
Polynesia was settled in a series of extraordinary voyages across an ocean spanning one third of the Earth¹, but the sequences of islands settled remain unknown and their timings disputed. Currently, several centuries separate the dates suggested by different archaeological surveys2–4. Here, using genome-wide data from merely 430 modern individuals from 21 key Pacific island populations and novel ancestry-specific computational analyses, we unravel the detailed genetic history of this vast, dispersed island network. Our reconstruction of the branching Polynesian migration sequence reveals a serial founder expansion, characterized by directional loss of variants, that originated in Samoa and spread first through the Cook Islands (Rarotonga), then to the Society (Tōtaiete mā) Islands (11th century), the western Austral (Tuha’a Pae) Islands and Tuāmotu Archipelago (12th century), and finally to the widely separated, but genetically connected, megalithic statue-building cultures of the Marquesas (Te Henua ‘Enana) Islands in the north, Raivavae in the south, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the easternmost of the Polynesian islands, settled in approximately ad 1200 via Mangareva.
In 1959, the Third Presbyterian Church on Aniwa, a small, low lying island in the TAFEA Province of Southern Vanuatu, was destroyed in Tropical Cyclone Amanda. Following its collapse, structural and other components of the building, a prefabricated structure imported from Australia in 1894, were collected by senior male Elders of the Church and repurposed into domestic architecture. Passed through intergenerational cycles of domestic reuse and favored for structural soundness, much of this material still exists in the homes of male descendants, who still serve important roles in the Presbyterian and wider community. This prefabricated church represents both an expanding network of international capitalism and local Indigenous agency, the blend of which is still evident in Aniwa’s domestic architecture. Survey and interviews revealed not only important structural information about the Third Church, but insight into the patrilineal manner through which structural material and social memory are inherited and dispersed on Aniwa.
Dossier d’Archéologie Polynésienne vol.6,
Bilan de la recherche archéologique en Polynésie française 2005 - 2015,
pp.285-294.
ISSN: 1961-8506
http://www.culture-patrimoine.pf/spip.php?article942
The invention of radiocarbon dating transformed how time was approached by archaeology. It has been argued that the adoption of geospatial technology – e.g., GIS, high-definition remote sensing, laser scanning – has had equally important consequences constituting a geospatial revolution in archaeology. In contrast to the radiocarbon revolution, which turned on the development of a single technology, the geospatial revolution involves a suite of different innovations, and as such, remains poorly defined. In this paper I present a meta-analysis of more than 11,000 literature references to better define precisely when, where, and how these technologies have been applied, and, to a limited degree, explore with text mining tools trends in topics discussed. Results suggest that after an experimental period in the 1990s, there was a rapid uptake of geospatial technology beginning around 2005. While the geospatial revolution has impacted archaeology on a global scale there appears to be a consistent, and concerning, geographic bias toward studies centered on Europe. Today, the proportion of the archaeological literature concerning some aspect of geospatial technology is equal to radiocarbon and is on track to continue to grow.
The study of past population dynamics is imperative to our understanding of demographic processes in the context of biology, evolution, environment and sociocultural factors. Retrospective consideration of a population's capacity to resist and adapt to change aims to contribute insights into our past, a point of comparison to the present and predictions for the future. If these aims are to be achieved, the accuracy and precision of palaeodemographic methods are of paramount importance. This article considers the emergence of skeletally based palaeodemographic methods, specifically life tables and demographic proxies, and early controversies and issues. It details the process of methodological development and refinement, and success in addressing many of the historical limitations. The contribution and potential of skeletally based methods are discussed and comparisons and contrasts made with alternative palaeodemographic approaches, and avenues for future research are proposed. Ultimately, it is concluded that skeletal analysis provides unique opportunities to investigate population dynamics with spatial specificity, examine individuals and groups within a population, and integrate demographic and pathological information to evaluate population health in the past.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography'.
Demographic processes directly affect patterns of genetic variation within contemporary populations as well as future generations, allowing for demographic inference from patterns of both present-day and past genetic variation. Advances in laboratory procedures, sequencing and genotyping technologies in the past decades have resulted in massive increases in high-quality genome-wide genetic data from present-day populations and allowed retrieval of genetic data from archaeological material, also known as ancient DNA. This has resulted in an explosion of work exploring past changes in population size, structure, continuity and movement. However, as genetic processes are highly stochastic, patterns of genetic variation only indirectly reflect demographic histories. As a result, past demographic processes need to be reconstructed using an inferential approach. This usually involves comparing observed patterns of variation with model expectations from theoretical population genetics. A large number of approaches have been developed based on different population genetic models that each come with assumptions about the data and underlying demography. In this article I review some of the key models and assumptions underlying the most commonly used approaches for past demographic inference and their consequences for our ability to link the inferred demographic processes to the archaeological and climate records.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.
Extract - Introduction to the book (english volume In Press)
S’inscrivant au sein du nouveau mouvement historiographique sur l’archéologie du Pacifique, cet ouvrage propose une réflexion particulière sur l’histoire de l’archéologie océanienne francophone, qu’elle soit française, belge ou relative aux archipels francophones du Pacifique. 13 contributions croisent les diverses perspectives d’archéologues, d’historiens, d’anthropologues, de conservateurs et d’écrivains. Les auteur.e.s interrogent le contexte épistémologique, les acteurs, les pratiques et les institutions qui ont concouru à ouvrir ce nouveau champ de recherche et à lui faire une place dans le paysage institutionnel de la science française et internationale.
Ce volume est le fruit d’un colloque organisé à Marseille en mai 2016 à l’initiative du projet CBAP The Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific - a Hidden History porté par The Australian National University, et en collaboration avec le laboratoire du CREDO (Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l’Océanie, UMR 7308) et l’équipe d’Ethnologie Préhistorique du laboratoire ArScAn (Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité, UMR 7041). Les thèmes abordés vont de l’histoire des idées et l’analyse épistémologique à l’approche biographique de la « science vécue » ; de la mise en contexte et la réévaluation de collections ou textes anciens à la réflexion sur les dangers du présentisme et le potentiel des analyses historiographiques pour développer des perspectives de recherche innovantes en archéologie.
The possibility of voyaging contact between prehistoric Polynesian and Native American populations has long intrigued researchers. Proponents have pointed to the existence of New World crops, such as the sweet potato and bottle gourd, in the Polynesian archaeological record, but nowhere else outside the pre-Columbian Americas1–6, while critics have argued that these botanical dispersals need not have been human mediated7. The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl controversially suggested that prehistoric South American populations had an important role in the settlement of east Polynesia and particularly of Easter Island (Rapa Nui)2. Several limited molecular genetic studies have reached opposing conclusions, and the possibility continues to be as hotly contested today as it was when first suggested8–12. Here we analyse genome-wide variation in individuals from islands across Polynesia for signs of Native American admixture, analysing 807 individuals from 17 island populations and 15 Pacific coast Native American groups. We find conclusive evidence for prehistoric contact of Polynesian individuals with Native American individuals (around ad 1200) contemporaneous with the settlement of remote Oceania13–15. Our analyses suggest strongly that a single contact event occurred in eastern Polynesia, before the settlement of Rapa Nui, between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group most closely related to the indigenous inhabitants of present-day Colombia. Genomic analyses of DNA from modern individuals show that, about 800 years ago, pre-European contact occurred between Polynesian individuals and Native American individuals from near present-day Colombia, while remote Pacific islands were still being settled.
Parrotfishes are commonly exploited in artisanal fisheries in tropical and subtropical areas. Given their prolonged use, they are common finds in archaeological sites from Oceania. Despite their high occurrence in archaeozoological assemblages, the degree to which they have been exploited is difficult to estimate without any length and weight data. Here, we present an osteometric model for Chlorurus mircrorhinos, an ubiquitous species from the west-central Pacific Ocean, based on reliable body-length reconstruction from isolated skeletal parts. We collected 30 specimens from French Polynesia ranging between 336-713 mm total length and 304-5341 g fresh weight. The length-weight relationship was W = 3.36E-06*FL3.2960 with r2 higher than 0.9. The model is based on neurocranium, premaxilla, dentary, maxilla, anguloarticular, quadrate, hyomandibula and the upper and lower pharyngeals. For each bone, three measurements were taken and the values were plotted against the fork length. All selected bones have at least one regression equation with a high r2 (> 0.9) allowing reliable estimation of length and weight of C. microrhinos from its skeletal components. This study provides useful data for studies where bone conservation is affected by variable taphonomic factors or differential preservation, such as the stomach content of scarid predators, or archaeological and paleontological assemblages in Oceania.
This article situates ethnohistory historically, conceptually, methodologically, and geographically in relation to its intertwined “parent” disciplines of anthropology and history. As a named interdisciplinary inquiry, ethnohistory emerged in the United States in the mid-1950s in the “applied” context of academic involvement in Native American land claims hearings after 1946. However, anthropology (the science of humanity) has overlapped, intersected, or diverged from history (study or knowledge of the past) since becoming a distinct field in Europe in the mid-18th century and gradually professionalized as an academic discipline from the 1830s, initially in Russia. Anthropological approaches oscillated between historicization and its neglect or denial, with recurring tension between event and system, process and structure, diachrony and synchrony. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, ethnology (comparative study of peoples or races, their origins and development) was distinguished from the natural history of man and from anthropology (the science of race), initially in France. From the 1860s to the 1920s, Anglophone anthropological theory was dominated by the opposed doctrines of sociocultural evolution and diffusion—both superficially historical but largely ahistorical processes. For the next half century, prevailing functionalist, structuralist, and culturalist discourses mostly denied knowable history to ethnography’s purportedly vanishing “primitive” subjects. This uneven, agonistic disciplinary history did not encourage a subfield uniting anthropology and history. However, after 1950, in global contexts of anticolonialism, decolonization, and movements for Indigenous or egalitarian rights, anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists developed the hybrid fields of Ethnohistory and Ethnographic History, which flourished for half a century. Practitioners transcended ethnohistory’s spatial and conceptual roots in the United States and Canada to investigate Indigenous or African American pasts in Latin America and the Caribbean, Indigenous or local pasts in Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and non-Indigenous pasts in Europe and elsewhere. The need to incorporate Indigenous or popular histories and viewpoints was increasingly emphasized. From the 1980s, ethnohistory was condemned as Eurocentric, outdated, even racist, by postcolonial and postmodern critiques. The label’s usage declined in the 21st century in favor of the already established terms anthropological history or historical anthropology, or the emergent fields of Anthropology of History, historical consciousness, and historicity.
Agroforestry systems have long played a central role in Polynesian societies, contributing to food production, building and craft production, and ritual activities. Until recently, however, archaeological studies of these important systems were limited. Recent methodological improvements and a growing number of macro- and micro-botanical studies have provided opportunities for a more empirical exploration of the role of agroforestry in pre-European Polynesia. Here we integrate the findings of several key studies to assess the qualities and contributions of agroforestry across the region. We highlight the expansive and enduring qualities of these systems and contrast them with other forms of production used in this region. Overall, processes of novel forest formation in Polynesia shared key characteristics that affected a suite of activities ranging from subsistence practices to the construction of cultural landscapes. Integration of agroforestry research ultimately provides a nuanced understanding of landscape transformations that are broadly characteristic of island socio-ecosystems.
Radiocarbon dating Pacific archaeological sites is fraught with difficulties. Often situated in coastal beach ridges or sand dunes, these sites exhibit horizontal and vertical disturbances, datable materials such as wood charcoal are typically highly degraded, may be derived from old trees or driftwood unless specifically identified to short-lived material, while bone collagen rarely survives in tropical conditions. Shell, therefore, is the most logical material for dating Pacific sites since it is resistant to alteration, can be sampled to ensure only the last few seasons of growth are represented and is often closely tied to human economic activities. However, shell radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating has been plagued by interpretive problems largely due to our limited knowledge of the ¹⁴C cycle in nearshore marine and estuarine environments. Consequently, shell dates are typically ignored in regional chronometric evaluations and in recent years shell is often avoided for dating altogether. Recent advances in our understanding of the source of shell ¹⁴C as well as the development of the first South Pacific Gyre model of changing marine ¹⁴C over time, combined with Bayesian statistical modelling, now provide us with insight into the value of these shell radiocarbon dates. Here we present a revision of the age of the To’aga site on Ofu Island–an early occupation site associated with the initial Polynesian Plainware period in Sāmoa, the earliest use of which we date to between 2785 and 2607 cal BP (68% probability).
Teti'aroa, located 28 nautical miles (52 km) north of Tahiti, lies at the periphery of the Windward Society islands. At the end of the eighteenth century, this atoll was presumably controlled by the chiefdom of Porionu'u, which included the districts of Pare and Arue on the north coast of Tahiti. This situation is confirmed by a number of ethnohistorical accounts and oral traditions describing an intense traffic of basic resources between the atoll and Tahiti island as well as the specific function of Teti'aroa for Tahitian social elites visiting the atoll for ceremonial or recreational purposes. However, the prehistory of the atoll remains largely unknown and the time‐depth of dominance by Tahitian elites on the atoll is unclear. In this paper, we investigate potential inter‐island relationships between Teti'aroa and other islands in the archipelago and beyond. We present geochemical analyses (energy dispersive X‐ray fluorescence and inductively coupled plasma‐atomic emission spectrometry) of stone tools and elements of ceremonial architecture ( marae ), which were necessarily imported given the complete subsidence of the volcanic substratum of the island. Our results confirm the regional origin of a majority of artefacts, but also indicate several later long‐distance relationships maintained by Tahitian chiefs.
This paper addresses Thor Heyerdahl’s skull-collecting act on Fatu Hiva in 1937 by approaching it from its historical context. Particular attention is paid to craniology as a scientific method, its purpose and the strong belief in its reliability during this period. It is also argued that the use of unauthorised collecting of human remains in contemporary travelogues, as elements of literary suspense and vehicles for the protagonist’s bravery, shows that the practice was largely socially accepted. Skull-collecting was viewed by the collector, from the perspective of a conservative world view, as a heroic act of protection and preservation.
Marquesan society has long captured the interest of European observers, in part because of unfamiliar institutions such as polyandry. However, due to complex and destructive historical changes and the very scattered nature of early source-materials, the distinctive Marquesan developments of Polynesian society have been obscure and at odds with anthropologists’ and historians’ overall understanding of Pacific societies. Nicholas Thomas’s book, based on a critical study of the fullest possible range of sources, is the first to provide a clear account of early Marquesan social relations and culture, and as such will become a key source for Pacific scholars. However, Dr Thomas’s discussion is not restricted to ethnohistoric documentation. His analysis of dynamic and highly fluid society and its encounters with early European visitors and traders encompasses wider debates about the nature of gender relations in Polynesian societies, small-scale hierarchical structures, cultural transformation, and longer-term change. In linking specific features of early Marquesan society, its contact with foreigners, and the longer-term transformations of eastern Polynesian societies, Dr Thomas offers Pacific studies a distinctive new perspective.
The Pacific Islands offer a variety of marine environments providing peoples in the present and past with abundant coral materials, a “stone from the sea”. Archaeologists have long recognised the importance of coral in ancient contexts, whether as gravel, natural branches, squared blocks or cut-and-dress slabs. Coral was also used to manufacture tools such as files or pounders and incorporated in monumental ceremonial architecture as a favoured construction material and foundation offerings. However, Pacific Islanders also employed coral material for other ritual applications that remain overlooked in the literature. In this article, we consider the multiple uses of coral in the archaeological and ethnographic records of three Pacific regions: Central-East Polynesia (CEP), New Caledonia and the Torres Strait Islands. This includes offering of coral branches, sometimes associated with cairns, paraphernalia and magic stones, also production of coral lime for body ornamentation. Using these case studies, we consider material selection, modes of deposition, archaeological and ethnographic contexts, associations with other features and artefacts, before interrogating the potential significance of these unrealised datasets. By doing so, we shed new light on the ritual value of coral and reflect on the symbolic nature and function of this material.
En Océanie, les renaissances culturelles sont encore souvent abordées, dans les recherches (françaises notamment), sous l’angle de l’«invention de la tradition», selon une perspective favorisant un nationalisme méthodologique, minorant leur portée épistémique. Afin de permettre la pleine réception de ces renaissances culturelles dans le champ scientifique, cette thèse s’inscrit dans une démarche décoloniale et resitue ces processus dans le cadre théorique de l’énonciation d’une différence. En me focalisant sur l’étude des renaissances culturelles tahitienne, marquisienne et mangarévienne (en Polynésie française), je rends compte de la dimension géographique de ces mouvements. Pour couper court à une approche linéaire et historiciste, je développe une analyse par échelles (spatiales, surtout, temporelles, parfois) de l’énonciation de ces différences. Après avoir rappelé l’existence de controverses autour du nationalisme culturel mā’ohi et le primat de l’échelle de l’archipel dans le développement des différentes renaissances culturelles en Polynésie française, je montre comment les marges de ce territoire bénéficient, à travers ces processus, d’une reconsidération. À plus petite échelle, je questionne la faible diffusion dans ce territoire de la perspective océanienne, souvent délaissée au profit d’un subrégionalisme centré sur le « triangle polynésien ». Ceci m’amène alors à envisager la possibilité, même très minoritaire, que ces renaissances culturelles, tout en s’inscrivant dans un ordre scalaire et territorial dominant, puissent présenter une charge critique et mobilisatrice, en mesure de subvertir un statu quo marqué par la colonialité.
Within “lost civilizations” narratives, the Pacific Islands bear great importance through the popularity of the mythical continent Mu. First mentioned by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1864, this supposed homeland of a flourishing civilization that vanished into the ocean echoed the fate of its Atlantean twin. Despite its scientific refutation, Mu fuelled the imagination behind many bandes dessinées. Authors’ overreliance upon the myth has nourished a damaging narrative concerning Pacific Islanders’ traditional cultures. While acknowledging that “borrowing” is common in the creation of imaginative narratives, I examine the syncretic representations of ancient Pacific cultures in European bande dessinée in order to illuminate these concerns and discuss how they reflect the history of ideas about the origins of Pacific Islanders. I end by examining the place of the graphic novel medium in the sharing of scientific ideas and the responsibilities that archaeologists must now take to redress detrimental biases towards indigenous communities.KeywordsBande dessinéeMuPacific IslandsSyncretismStereotypesIndigeneity
The availability of nutrient‐rich soils capable of supporting intensive cultivation was a key factor in the relative vulnerability and resilience of traditional Polynesian societies, whose economies were based on agricultural production. We tested the hypothesis that geological age was a key controlling factor in determining the nutrient status of island soils, extensively sampling soils on two islands and a small archipelago in southeastern Polynesia: Mo‘orea (1.5–1.72 Ma), Maupiti (3.9–4.5 Ma), and the Gambier Islands (5.6–6.3 Ma). Rather than supporting a hypothesis of island age primarily determining soil fertility, our results indicate that topographic relief, the presence of active slope processes such as landslides and mass wasting, and rainfall are more important controlling factors. Rejuvenation of soil nutrients due to mass wasting, in particular, appears to be the most important factor contributing to soil fertility. Our field surveys also provide archaeological evidence showing that precontact Polynesians were finely attuned to local soil properties, targeting high soil fertility areas for agriculture and reserving lower fertility areas for other land use practices.
In Central-East Polynesia (CEP), development of warfare remains poorly documented except for the fortified villages of Rapa iti. In the Marquesas islands, previous research briefly reported the existence of defensive structures, especially some fortified pā, in areas usually qualified as 'marginal'. However, no site has yet been investigated in depth. In 2015, within the context of the larger Ua Huka project, we documented the pā of Mahaki, located between 700 and 800 m in altitude, and known in local oral traditions as a fortified refuge site for the Hokatu community during periods of conflicts. We recorded various categories of archaeological remains, the interpretations of which revealed a complex occupation of this area combining economic, defensive, and ritual functions. We argue that increasing inter-community violence and environmental pressure drove the progressive occupation of the high plateau. This study sheds new light on the Marquesan pā and their integration into the territories of the 'enata chiefdoms.
Globally, the place of dogs in the anthropogenic niche is varied, with dogs often tightly integrated into human communities, but sometimes pushed to the margins, and occasionally persisting as independent feral populations. Dog-human symbioses are correspondingly diverse, ranging from mutualistic to commensal to competitive. The Pacific Islands, and Polynesia in particular, offer a useful context in which to consider dog-human symbioses across varied socio-environmental settings. The translocation of domestic dogs across this oceanic region was underway more than two millennia ago, if not earlier, with dogs established on numerous Pacific Islands. However, occasionally dogs were subsequently extirpated, a situation often attributed to competition between dogs and their human managers. Here we focus on how the dog-human symbiosis shifted as colonists moved from the small, environmentally-circumscribed, islands of tropical central Polynesia, to the largest, most ecologically diverse landmasses in the region—the islands of Aotearoa New Zealand. We hypothesize that the mid-13th century settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand initially resulted in competitive release for Polynesian dogs (i.e., relaxation of competition with humans) but as large native prey were depleted, and human communities economically reorganised, dog-human competition arose anew. These two hypotheses are evaluated using: a) country-wide data on dog distributions and abundance over time; and b) a regionally focused analysis of dental markers relating to dog diet and health. Our results support the hypothesis of competitive release on entry to Aotearoa New Zealand; dogs were quickly distributed across the two main islands, onto many large offshore islands, and into varied ecological niches—where they were generally well represented and associated with human occupations. This situation appears to have been followed by interspecific competition midway through the Māori sequence (ca. AD 1450–1650), when both dog assemblages and dog abundances are poorly represented. From the mid-17th century, dog population rebound is suggested, possibly accompanied by new husbandry practices. These trends are not, however, well reflected in the regionally focused dental marker analysis, where good oral health and adequate nutrition are indicated. Published studies of dog coprolites and stable isotopes analyses help flesh out the dental analyses and point to avenues of future study. Our research gives new insights into variability in dog-human symbioses across the Pacific Islands and potentially elsewhere, with a particular focus on the conditions that give rise to competition and the value of multi-proxy analyses in unravelling these complex entanglements.
The contribution of shellfish to ancient subsistence has been overlooked in many archaeological studies in Central-East Polynesia. Archaeomalacology, however, can shed light on a wider range of exploited mollusks. In this paper we investigate the exploitation of the chiton Acanthopleura gemmata from the Hane Dune site, Ua Huka, Marquesas Islands. Although several previous studies have highlighted the importance of chitons in Hane’s archaeological record, little information has been presented about this important subsistence item as it is seldom identified with precision and is usually quantified by weight. Using zooarchaeological methods, spatial analysis, and biometry, we demonstrate the importance of chitons in past ‘Enata subsistence. We highlight the intensive exploitation of A. gemmata during the first three centuries of occupation of the site, beginning ca. AD 950, until its abrupt depletion, correlated with the progressive exploitation of the limpet Cellana radiata. Through this case study, we stress the importance of precise taxonomic identification and refined recovery protocols to better understand subsistence trends.
Collagen peptide mass fingerprinting of archaeofaunal remains, or Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), has increasingly established itself as a valuable tool for improving our understanding of highly-fragmented faunal assemblages. Although there have been developments in sampling strategies that have attempted to reduce damage to precious archaeological specimens, these tend to yield spectra inferior in quality to those yielded by destructive approaches. Also, in an effort to mitigate the impacts on faunal assemblages, researchers are beginning to turn to microCT for the digital preservation of specimens, as this enhances their value for further studies. Here we combine ZooMS and microCT, in application to over one hundred scombrid remains from the Hanamiai site in the Marquesas, which spans the time period from initial human colonization by Polynesians at ca. AD 1250 until around 1900. Almost all of the hypurals that yielded collagen fingerprints (71 of 73) were confirmed as skipjack. The results suggest striking continuity over time in fishing practices with an inferred emphasis on fishing strategies involving sailing canoes being present from the time of initial settlement. The focus appears to be on daytime fishing for skipjack rather than on night fishing for yellowfin, kawakawa and dogtooth tuna as might otherwise have been expected.
This Conversation piece presents the research around the interactive map and online bibliographic database produced by the project.
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-invisible-no-more-putting-the-first-women-archaeologists-of-the-pacific-back-on-the-map-167886
Domestic dogs were transported by voyagers to the islands of Remote Oceania. However, the distribution of these, and other domesticates, varies by location. By the time of European contact, dogs were extirpated from many islands, but the cause of their disappearance remains unknown. Archaeological reports and ethnohistoric text analysed for 35 islands and island groups in Remote Oceania reveal regional patterns of dog introduction and loss that shed light on their disappearance. The findings of this survey indicate that people introduced dogs to most island groups in Remote Oceania and that pre‐European extirpation rates were high. The highest localized extinction rates occurred on low islands suggesting that low‐island vulnerabilities and spatial constraints on population size affect survivorship. The dogs of Remote Oceania have a complex history in which introduction to new islands was common, but long‐term persistence was difficult.
Establishing the timing of human colonization of the eastern Pacific and developing cultural chronologies within the island groups of Eastern Polynesia has relied primarily on ¹⁴C dating. Despite advancements in ¹⁴C dating, however, uncertainties introduced during calibration to calendar ages remain large relative to the tempo of human settlement of the eastern Pacific and ensuing Polynesian cultural development. ²³⁰Th dating of coral abraders, a common artifact in Polynesian archaeological sites, can potentially provide more precise ages. We report a high-precision chronology for the Kitchen Cave rockshelter on Kamaka Island in the Mangareva (Gambier) Islands, based on parallel series of 13 ¹⁴C AMS dates on short-lived plant materials and 19 ²³⁰Th dates on Acropora coral abraders and non-utilized Acropora coral branches. The ²³⁰Th coral dating results are highly consistent with ages from ¹⁴C dating, except in two cases where corals younger than expected occupied what are most likely intrusive contexts. Moreover, because the ¹⁴C and ²³⁰Th dating techniques are largely independent, obtaining consistent results via the two techniques increases confidence in the resulting chronology. A reliable ²³⁰Th date of 860 ± 5 CE for a coral from the basal layer of the cultural sequence, whose deposition cannot readily be explained by natural processes, raises the possibility of an early Polynesian visit to Kamaka Island some centuries prior to initiation of permanent occupation in the 11th to 13th centuries. These results confirm that ²³⁰Th dating of Acropora branch coral abraders can be applied to other sites in the Pacific with a high degree of confidence.
The atoll of Fakahina, in the eastern Tuamotus, was recently the focus of a multidisciplinary research project led by the Centre International de Recherche Archéologique sur la Polynésie (CIRAP). During our survey, we recorded the very well preserved remains of the early Christian village of Hokikakika. Here we present the ethnohistorical information regarding the development of the Catholic village gathered from missionary sources, present-day oral testimonies, civil records and a summary of the archaeological recording undertaken. The organisation of the mission and its surroundings is described, including different types of private houses and other features. The thorough multidisciplinary investigation , the first of its kind in French Polynesia, of this exceptional ensemble represented across this missionised village, sheds new light on the daily lives of a newly converted community during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
The 1853 stone house of Presbyterian missionaries Reverend John (also known as Misi Gete) and Charlotte Geddie is located in Anelcauhat village, Aneityum, the southernmost inhabited island of Vanuatu. In 2012 and 2013 archaeological investigations took place in and around the dwelling, the oldest standing colonial building in Vanuatu and one of the oldest in Melanesia. Excavations revealed shallow in-ground foundations and functional construction and architectural details. Results highlighted ways in which the Geddies were forced to adapt to their environment while also creating a 'civilised' domestic space that would support their work of converting the Aneityumese population to Christianity. Comparison with other mission sites in Vanuatu suggests that architectural designs, construction methods and philosophies varied in at least some of their aspects from station to station, often developing from individual domestic needs and objectives, and the specific chronological, economic and social context in which they occurred.
From the late 1930s to his death in 2002, the Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) relentlessly sought scientific acceptance for his controversial Kon-Tiki Theory. The theory separated the settlement of the Pacific into two different migrating races: the transatlantic culture bearers or white bearded men; and the originally Asiatic warrior race, the Maori-Polynesians. To date very little scholarly attention has been devoted to what influenced Heyerdahl to develop the intensely debated theory. Heyerdahl himself claimed that the theory came to him as an epiphany through encounters during his first journey to Polynesia in 1937. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the origin and development of Heyerdahl's theory by focusing on his 1937 journey to Polynesia. This will be done particularly by targeting three distinguishable tropes of ethnographic travel writing detectable in Heyerdahl's own narration of the theory's origin. These include: Heyerdahl's contrasting of the omniscient traveller and the armchair scientist; the connection he drew between a white race and advanced culture; and his emphasis on being there as the only means to extract knowledge. In Heyerdahl's writing the latter trope also includes a second level which stressed the need to be there not only physically but mentally by performing primitivism. A central aim of this thesis is also to deconstruct Heyerdahl's autobiography, to extract original chronologies and intentions masked by later improvements from secondary contexts and intentions. In addition to published sources, the thesis source material consists of archival material such as field-journals, letters and manuscripts. Through these sources the origin and the development of the theory will be analysed from the mid-1930s up until its final publication in 1952. The analysis will focus on the influence Norwegian scientific tradition and Heyerdahl's student years at Oslo University had on the theory. It will also focus on Heyerdahl's knowledge and perceptions of Polynesia prior to his Polynesian journey, and how these perceptions altered when he encountered the real Polynesia. Further, the influence on the theory of Heyerdahl's discovery of material culture and archaeological sites in Polynesia will be considered, as well as how meetings and readings in Europe and North America in the period 1938-1952 influenced the development of the theory. This thesis concludes that Heyerdahl's theory originated in the contrast between his pre-journey vision of humanity's natural state and the Polynesia he encountered. This contrast sparked a racist interpretation of Polynesian prehistory, where the Polynesian people were detached from their own prehistory and replaced by a more advanced race. Heyerdahl further defined the origin of this race as the transatlantic white bearded men, through actively choosing to ignore research literature in favour of amateur studies and adventure stories when he developed the theory in Norway and the US. Heyerdahl sought acceptance of the theory by polarising his own knowledge achieved from being there against that of an outdated image of the scientist and scientific institutions, and finally by developing his own fields of specialisation by creating and performing various experiments without attachment to empirical material.
We present a case-study of a collaboration between archaeologists and geneticists that has helped settle a long-standing controversy and opened up new research questions for the Pacific region. The work provided insights into the history of human settlement and cultural changes in Vanuatu in the western Pacific, which in turn shed light on the origins of the cultural and linguistic diversity that characterizes the archipelago. Close interdisciplinary collaborations like this maximize the potential of ancient DNA to contribute to our understanding of the past and advance the scholarship of practitioners in both disciplines.
In the Marquesas Islands, topographically rugged and prone to droughts, the subsistence economy at Western contact was strongly focused on arboriculture. Drawing on niche construction theory, we detail the socio-natural processes that gave rise to this cultivation system using the largest Polynesian archaeobotanical study to date. Inceptive, counter-active, and proactive niche construction was evidenced over six centuries of human occupation. Two 13th century tree translocations were identified: candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) and breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis). Establishment of these and other crops was accompanied by extensive forest clearance and repetitive burning-indicative of shifting cultivation. These activities brought consequential changes to native coastal and lowland vegetation, and extinctions of indigenous forest and bird species. Fifteenth-century counter-active niche construction involved the rapid dispersal and increasing uptake of tree cultivation (especially breadfruit) within and across valleys, and diversification of the tree crop inventory. The advantages of breadfruit cultivation-nutritional, economic, ecological, and geomorphic-were considerable and from the mid-17th century arboriculture came to dominate the Marquesan economy, perhaps accelerated by unpredictable climatic conditions. Six centuries of niche construction created an array of novel selective conditions, invoking evolutionary responses in Marquesan people, flora, and fauna, and fostering a unique ecological inheritance for future generations.
Teti’aroa is the only atoll in the Windward group of the Society Islands, French Polynesia. It has been described in the ethnohistorical record as a secondary place of residence for the Tahitian royal family of
Pare in the 18th Century. However, Teti’aroa’s history beyond this remains relatively unknown as the atoll is archaeologically understudied. Here we report the preliminary results of a project, started in 2015, which aims at documenting the long-term occupation of Teti’aroa. We present the survey and mapping of the archaeological remains and discuss the monumental architecture, the relationships with neighbouring and distant communities, and investigations of the historical copra plantation.