Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-20T17:30:44.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Driving Factors in the Colonization of Oceania: Developing Island-Level Statistical Models to Test Competing Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Adrian V. Bell ,
Thomas E. Currie ,
Geoffrey Irwin  and
Christopher Bradbury
Adrian V. Bell
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, 270 S. 1400 E. Room 102, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 ([email protected])
Thomas E. Currie
Affiliation:
Centre for Ecology & Conservation, College of Life & Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall, United Kingdom TR 10 9FE ([email protected])
Geoffrey Irwin
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand ([email protected])
Christopher Bradbury
Affiliation:
Department of Geology & Geophysics, Univesity of Utah, Frederick Albert Sutton Building, 115 S. 1450 E., Room 383, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0102 ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Migration is a key driver of human cultural and genetic evolution, with recent theoretical advances calling for work to accurately identify factors behind early colonization patterns. However, inferring prehistoric migration strategies is a controversial field of inquiry that largely relies on interpreting settlement chronologies and constructing plausible narratives around environmental factors. Model selection approaches, along with new statistical models that match the dynamic nature of colonization, offers a more rigorous framework to test competing theories. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by developing an Island-Level Model of Colonization adapted from epidemiology in a Bayesian model-selection framework. Using model selection techniques, we assess competing colonization theories of Near and Remote Oceania, showing that models of exploration angles and risk performed considerably better than models using inter-island distance, suggesting early seafarers were already adept at long-distance travel. These results are robust after artificially increasing the uncertainty around settlement times. We show how decades of thinking on colonization strategies can be brought together and assessed in one statistical framework, providing us with greater interpretive power to understand a fundamental feature of our past.

Résumé

Résumé

La migración es un factor clave de la evolución cultural y genética humana. Recientamente, los avances teóricos que requieren esfuerzos para identificar los factores que respaldan los modelos de la colonización primaria. Sin embargo, la investigación para infer ir estrategias de migración es un tema polémico que se basa en gran parte en la interpretación de las cronologías de asentamiento y la creación de narrativas plausibles en torno a factores ambientales. Los criterios de selección de modelo,junto con los nuevos modelos estadísticos que responden a la naturaleza dinámica de la colonización, ofrecen un método más riguroso para poner a prueba las teorías en pugna. Demostramos la utilidad de este enfoque mediante el desarrollo de un Modelo de Colonización de Islas, adaptado de la epidemiología, con una especiftcación bayesiana. Usando técnicas de selección de modelo, evaluamos teorías divergentes de colonización de la Oceanίa Cercana y Lejana, y demostramos que los modelos de los ángulos de exploración y riesgo son considerablemente más respaldados que los modelos que utilizan la distancia entre las islas, lo que sugiere que los primeros marinos ya eran más adeptos a los viajes de larga distancia. Estos resultados son robustos aun después de un aumento artificial de la incertidumbre en torno a los tiempos de la colonización. Este anólisis muestra cómo décadas de teoría sobre las estrategias de colonización pueden ser compiladas y evaluadas en un enfoque estadístico que nos ofrece una mayor capacidad de interpretación de las características fundamentales de nuestro pasado.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 397 - 407
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Akaike, Hirotugu 1974 A New Look at the Statistical Model Identification. Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions 19:716–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, James, and O'Connell, James. F. 2008 Getting from Sunda to Sahul. In Islands of Inquiry: Colonisation, Seafaring and the Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes, edited by Geoffrey A. Clark, Foss Leach, and Sue O'Connor, pp. 31–46. Australian National University Press, Canberra.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Atholl, Chappell, John, Gagan, Michael, and Grove, Richard 2006 Prehistoric Maritime Migration in the Pacific Islands: An Hypothesis of ENSO Forcing. The Holocene 16:1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellwood, Peter 1996 Hierarchy, Founder Ideology and Austronesian Expansion. In Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography, edited by J. J. Fox and C. Sather, pp. 19–41. Australian National University E Press, Canberra.Google Scholar
Buck, Caitlin E., Cavanagh, William G., and Litton, Clifford D. 1996 Bayesian Approach to Interpreting Archaeological Data. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Burnham, Kenneth P., and Anderson, David R. 2002 Model Selection and Multi-Model Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Clark, Geoffrey R., Reepmeyer, Christian, Melekiola, Nivaleti, Woodhead, Jon, Dickinson, William R., and Martinsson-Wallin, Helene 2014 Stone Tools from the Ancient Tongan State Reveal Prehistoric Interaction Centers in the Central Pacific. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111:10491–10496. Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, Thomas E., Greenhill, Simon J., Gray, Russell D., Hasegawa, Toshikazu, and Mace, Ruth 2010 Rise and Fall of Political Complexity in Island South-East Asia and the Pacific. Nature 467:801–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deardon, Rob, Brooks, Stephen P., Grenfell, Bryan T., Keeling, Matthew J., Tildesley, Michael J., Savill, Nicholas J., Shaw, Darren J., and Woolhouse, Mark E.J. 2010 Inference for Individual-Level Models of Infectious Deseases in Large Populations. Statistica Sinica 20:239–261.Google Scholar
Di Piazza, Anne, Pearthree, Erik, and Paille, Francois 2014 Wind Tunnel Measurements of the Performance of Canoe Sails from Oceania. Journal of the Polynesian Society 123:9–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fretwell, Stephen D., and Lucas, Henry L. 1970 On Territorial Behaviour and Other Factors Influencing Habitat Distribution in Birds. I. Theoretical Development. Acta Biotheoretica 19:16–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Ian D., Browning, Stuart A., and Anderson, Atholl J. 2014 Climate windows for Polynesian voyaging to New Zealand and Easter Island. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111:14716–14721. Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, J. Patrick 1999 A Corrected Ethnographic Atlas. World Cultures 10(1):24–85.Google Scholar
Gray, R.D., Drummond, A.J., and Greenhill, S.J. 2009 Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement. Science 323:479–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hau'ofa, Epueli 1993 Our Sea of islands. In A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands, edited by Eric Waddell, Vijay Naidu, and Epueli Hau'ofa, pp. 3–16. University of the South Pacific, Suva.Google Scholar
Irwin, Geoffrey 1992 The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irwin, Geoffrey 2008 Pacific Seascapes, Canoe Performance, and a Review of Lapita Voyaging with Regard to Theories of Migration. Asian Perspectives 47:12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johns, Dilys A., Irwin, Geoffrey J., and Sung, Yun K. 2014 An Early Sophisticated East Polynesian Voyaging Canoe Discovered on New Zealand's Coast. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(41):14728–14733. Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennett, Douglas, Anderson, Atholl, and Winterhalder, Bruce 2006 The Ideal Free Distribution, Food Production and the Colonization of Oceania. In Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, edited by D. Kennett and B. Winterhalder, pp. 265–288. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, Patrick Vinton 1997 The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kirch, Patrick Vinton 2000 On the Road of the Winds: An Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European contact. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Lee, Helen Morton, and Francis, Steve Tupai (editors) 2009 Migration and Transnationalism: Pacific Perspectives. Australian National University E Press, Canberra.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, Douglas S. 2009 The Political Economy of Migration in an Era of Globalization. In International Migration and Human Rights: The Global Repercussions of U.S. Policy, edited by S. Martínez, pp. 25–43. University of California Press, Berkley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montenegro, Alvaro, Callaghan, Richard T., and Fitzpatrick, Scott M. 2014 From West to East: Environmental Influences on the Rate and Pathways of Polynesian Colonization. The Holocene 24:242–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagel, Mark, and Meade, Andrew 2006 Bayesian Analysis of Correlated Evolution of Discrete Characters by Reversible-Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo. The American Naturalist 167:808–825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shennan, Stephen 2008a Evolution in Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 37:75–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shennan, Stephen 2008b Population Processes and Their Consequences in Early Neolithic Central Europe. In The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences, edited by Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Ofer Bar-Yosef, pp. 315–329. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheppard, Peter J. 2012 Lapita Colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania Boundary. Current Anthropology 52:799–840.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiegelhalter, David J., Best, Nicola G., Carlin, Bradley P., and van der Linde, Angelika 2002 Bayesian Measures of Model Complexity and Fit. Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society Series B 64:583–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisler, Marshall I. 1998 Hard Evidence for Prehistoric Interaction in Polynesia. Current Anthropology 39:521–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilmshurst, Janet M., Hunt, Terry L., Lipo, Carl P., and Anderson, Atholl J. 2011 High-Precision Radiocarbon Dating Shows Recent and Rapid Initial Human Colonization of East Polynesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(5):1815–1820. Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winterhalder, Bruce, Kennett, Douglas J., Grote, Mark N., and Bartruff, Jacob 2010 Ideal Free Settlement of California's Northern Channel Islands. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29:469–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Bell et al. Supplementary Material

Table S1

Download Bell et al. Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 72.5 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Bell et al. Supplementary Material

Table S2

Download Bell et al. Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 146.4 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Bell et al. Supplementary Material

Figure S1

Download Bell et al. Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 156.6 KB