Back in service and Pacific archaeology conference 2009

Ia ora na everyone, i've been away for way too long but now, the Pacific archaeology blog is back in service. I just realized that i wrote NOTHING in here for a year, which is absolutely scandalous... the updates : my Phd field-business part of it is in stand by since a few months but this, too, will get back in service ASAP. These last 5 months, i've been working for the (previous) minister of culture as a technical advisor for cultural and archaeological heritage. It was a very interesting experience but also a very frustrating one since I didn't have time to achieve what i wanted. The political situation is very unsteady and is seriously messing up the country, archaeology included! there is a new governement since last week, God knows how long this will last but i really hope that things are gonna be ok..before i start to digress, let's go back to our business : pacific archaeology. 2 news: 1/ the archaeology in our beautiful country is in a catastrophic shape at many levels but thanks goodness, we have some real passionate archaeologists and amateurs from here and outside who try to keep things going, no matter what. 2/ the Pacific Science Congress will be held in Tahiti in March (2 to 6, i think..). We are supposed to present something on March 4th, "WE" being my colleague Tamara Maric and myself. It is about oral traditions, chiefdoms and exploitation of natural resources in the Society Islands. I'll paste the abstract later and the program for the archaeology session, when i find them. This reminds me that i have some urgent work to do for this presentation. I wonder who had that great grandiloquent idea for the topic of our presentation, it gives me a headache already.. anyway, let me go brew another cup of nespresso and i'll be right back.... 3/ one cup later, i'm back with the latest news of the day : the Pacific archaeology conference that will be held in Palau in july 2009, 1st to 3rd..i'm seriously considering attending the conference..one has to find all excuses to get the hell out of here once in a while.. more seriously, i'm discussing with my brain if we should moderate a forum or panel discussion or not since i've been approached for that. Let me talk with my accolytes (i'm making up words from french to english..) and make a decision later... here is the link to the conference website : http://www.pacificarchaeology2009.com/ Voilà, enough for that very rainy day in Tahiti, storms, rain, clouds..anything normal under our beautiful tahitian skies, ok when the poetry becomes so bad, it's time sto stop ! mauru'uru, hinanui

Pacific islanders' ancestry emerges in genetic studies...

here is the link on the Southeast Asian archaeology newsblog... right here..

recent news about ancient voyaging....

here is the link to an article from the National geographic highlighting recent news about ancient Polynesian voyaging and trade networks... click here....

new bibliographies

ia ora na everyone, i just posted 2 bibliographies from my comps: one is about Pacific voyaging and settlement of the region with a focus on Polynesia, approved by Dr. Ben Finney himself, the other one is about settlement patterns, subsistence systems and social complexity in the same area. they were validated last march 2007 so maybe, new titles showed up since then...have fun...

Back to the trees, sorry, i mean back to the field...

ia ora na everyone, i'm back after months of silence. Actually, i thought the blog was buried alive, i completely forgot about it..originally it was created to go through the comps without getting crazy..well, i passed my comps in last march/april 2007, got crazy and now, i'm back to normal for another round of craziness : fieldwork. I'm in Tahiti and Moorea since june for my research fieldwork and it is not fun every day. Before i start complaining, let's see what happened this past half year: -like i said, i passed my comps, i'm ABD now and doing my fieldwork in the Society Islands, ok, we got that part.... -my little angel (it's a joke, of course...) Roonui turned 2 in august... -we created our association (NGO French style sort of thing...) "Te 'Ihipapa no ta'ato'a" in january (Archaeology for everyone). "we" means my friend Tamara Maric and myself, miss Maric being an archaeologist and PhD candidate as well. I'll give more details later, but roughly, one day we decided that archaeology is not only for archaeologists, researchers, specialists and so forth who represent a ridiculous percentage of humankind versus the people who represent a majority of the population....in other words, archaeology belongs to all of us and first of all, for those whose lands and past we are scrutinizing....what's the point of filling databases with thousands of data when the kids from around the village have no clue where their tupuna are coming from ? what's the point of hearing yourself blablablaing in front of a very small audience when your folks have no idea of what the hell you're doing with your trowel and when you forget to share your "knowledge" with EVERYBODY who is concerned ? anyway, i'll explain another day what's up with our association. it was jut about reconnecting with the world and say that the Pacific archaeology blog is back in service..... mauru'uru, hinanui

Bibliography about the Pan-Pacific zoo (in progress...)

hi, i've been horribly busy recently but the pig story is coming soon, meanwhile, you can always entertain yourself with these very exciting readings, hehe..

Allen, M. S., E. Matisoo-Smith, et al. 2001. Pacific 'Babes': Issues in the origins and dispersal of Pacific pigs and the potential of mitochondrial DNA analysis. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology I:4-13.

Anderson, A. 2002. Faunal collapse, landscape change, and settlement history in Remote Oceania. World Archaeology 33:375-390.

Athens, J. S., Tuggle, H. D. et al. 2002. Avifaunal extinctions, vegetation change, and Polynesian impacts in prehistoric Hawai`i. Archaeology in Oceania 37:57-78.

Giovas, C. 2006. No pig atoll: the extirpation of a Polynesian domesticate. Asian Perspectives 45:69-95.

Matisoo-Smith, E., J. Allen, et al. 1997. Ancient DNA from Polynesian rats: extraction, amplification and sequence from single small bones. Electrophoresis 18:1534-7.

Matisoo-Smith, E., R. M. Roberts, et al. 1998. "Patterns of prehistoric human mobility in Polynesia by mtDNA from the Pacific rat." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U.S.A. 95:15145-15150.

Steadman, D. W. 1995. Prehistoric Extinctions of Pacific Island Birds: Biodiversity Meets Zooarchaeology. Science 267:1123-1131.

Titcomb, M. 1969. Dog and man in the ancient Pacific with special attention to Hawaii. Vol. 59. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication.

Wilmshurst, J. M., Higham, T. 2004. Using rat-gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans in New Zealand. The Holocene 14:801-806.

Welcome to the Pan-Pacific zoo

I had a few articles to read about the Pan-Pacific zoo since humans did not show up alone with their canoes. I'm trying to turn it into something funny here because I HATE rats, I have some limited sympathy for pigs and none at all for chickens but i love dogs..so, humans brought their stock of plant materials as well but I keep that green part for later since agriculture in general and in the Pacific in particular fascinates me and it deserves an entire blog. Let's keep the zoo-circus going for now and focus on our four-legged friends (oops, the chicken is bipedal but never mind…) : I had to read these things about rats and pigs bones (yes, I did it….) and how they can give us some insights about human colonization in the region.

I briefly summarize the facts here for my brain’ sake and your information. Let’s begin with the ugliest one for this morning, our friend the RAT, who probably invited itself to the party, by the way. It was an occasional snack or even worse, a regular source of extra-protein (gloups…) for people. Its lovely nickname is Rattus exulans and even sexier, ‘iore in Tahitian, kiore in Maori, ‘iole in Hawaiian, etc… Before I start, the sources :

Wilmshurst, J. M., Higham, T. 2004. Using rat-gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans in New Zealand. The Holocene 14:801-806. And http://www.wikipedia.com/, type rattus exulans + Pacific It is the 3rd most widespread specie of rat on the planet after the brown and the black rat. Rattus exulans was either introduced on purpose by humans or again, invited itself onboard.

Maybe one day, I should share the story about how the proud descendents of R.E invited themselves into MY kitchen in Tahiti and how they became a source of joy for my doggy and a pure nightmare for us. Then, you’ll understand better my chronic reluctance to these little crawling things.

Anyway, R.E cannot swim very far and since it came along with humans, it is an interesting factor helping to track human colonization on the region. Apparently, R.E. is omnivorous and has a good appetite, given the damages that it did on the environment in the region.

What I was reading is a controversy about the arrival of rat in New Zealand. Someone suggested (Sutton, 1987) that R.E showed up very early, around A.D. 0-150, but recent studies on gnawed seeds proved it wrong. The idea was that R.E. and his friends landed in Aotearoa once upon a time early in the 1st millennium A.D. with the “1st” humans walking on this land. These guys did not stay long and/or perished/left and never came back while R.E. and friends stayed and partied for a few more centuries until humans came back (when the cats are gone…le chat parti, les souris dansent…).

It seems that the story was quite different. The infamous seeds studied bear special marks that are made only by R.E. lovely teeth. Samples were taken from 3 coastal sites, ideal locations for 1st landings and settlements and dated.

The results match with more recent results about early settlement in Aotearoa : 13th century !!

It means that Rattus exulans, friends and family very probably came on the same va’a with humans and had to share the new land with them, which they did pretty well given the long survival of these horrible little things. Last detail before I close the chapter, the interest of this particular study with seeds is that rat bones make problems for dating purposes. The reasons are not completely well understood but it has to do, partly, with their diet.

Next time, it will be the Pacific babes’ turn to run the show. After the lecture part, I’ll have an interesting story to share about pigs, karma and marae in Tahiti or how a descendent of Sus scrofa had an amazing social promotion on the most sacred part of a marae somewhere in Paea at the end of the 20th century. Ok, I start to disgress, time to go, nana..

Background to Pacific Archaeology

A good introduction to the topic from Pat Kirch (University of Berkeley)...

Maps and pictures III Society islands

3/ Society Islands, this is the best looking map i found so far for the Society Islands (from Snails Vs. snails, a webpage dedicated to landsnails from Tahiti and the Societies)

Map by S.V. Medaris for The Why Files, copyright University of Wisconsin Board of Regents