The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies: Archaeological and Demographic Perspectives

Kirch, Patrick Vinton; Rallu, Jean-Louis

ISBN 10: 0824831489 / ISBN 13: 9780824831486

Verlag: University of Hawaii Press (edition ), 2007

The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 0824831489-7-1

Inhaltsangabe:

Were there major population collapses on Pacific Islands following first contact with the West? If so, what were the actual population numbers for islands such as Hawai‘i, Tahiti, or New Caledonia? Is it possible to develop new methods for tracking the long-term histories of island populations? These and related questions are at the heart of this new book, which draws together cutting-edge research by archaeologists, ethnographers, and demographers.

In their accounts of exploration, early European voyagers in the Pacific frequently described the teeming populations they encountered on island after island. Yet missionary censuses and later nineteenth-century records often indicate much smaller populations on Pacific Islands, leading many scholars to debunk the explorers’ figures as romantic exaggerations. Recently, the debate over the indigenous populations of the Pacific has intensified, and this book addresses the problem from new perspectives.

Rather than rehash old data and arguments about the validity of explorers’ or missionaries’ accounts, the contributors to this volume offer a series of case studies grounded in new empirical data derived from original archaeological fieldwork and from archival historical research. Case studies are presented for the Hawaiian Islands, Mo‘orea, the Marquesas, Tonga, Samoa, the Tokelau Islands, New Caledonia, Aneityum (Vanuatu), and Kosrae.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor: Patrick Vinton Kirch is professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island ...
Verlag: University of Hawaii Press (edition )
Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
Einband: Paperback
Zustand: Fair