Archaeological Landscape Evolution The Mariana Islands in the Asia-Pacific Region

About this book

Landscapes have been fundamental to the human experience world-wide and throughout time, yet how did we as human beings evolve or co-evolve with our landscapes? By answering this question, we can understand our place in the complex, ever-changing world that we inhabit. Archaeological Landscape Evolution guides readers on a journey through the concurrent processes of change in an integrated natural-cultural history of a landscape. While outlining the general principles for global application, a richly illustrated case is offered through the Mariana Islands in the northwest tropical Pacific and furthermore situated in a larger Asia-Pacific context for a full comprehension of landscape evolution at variable scales. The author examines what happened during the first time when human beings encountered the world's Remote Oceanic environment in the Mariana Islands about 3500 years ago, followed by a continuous sequence of changing sea level, climate, water resources, forest composition, human population growth, and social dynamics. Archaeological Landscape Evolution provides a high-resolution and long-term view of the complexities of landscape evolution that affect all of us today.

Contents

Part One: Parameters of study
Chapter 1: Landscape evolution as natural-cultural history
Chapter 2: Global applicability of landscape evolution
Chapter 3: Environmental setting and dynamics
Chapter 4: Marianas archaeology in local and regional perspectives
Chapter 5: Coordinating perspectives of the past
Chapter 6: Range of archaeological material culture

Part Two: Chronological sequence
Chapter 7: Building an archaeological chronology
Chapter 8: 1500-1100 B.C., initial settlement
Chapter 9: 1100-700 B.C., changing coastlines
Chapter 10: 700 B.C.-A.D. 1, broadened horizons
Chapter 11: A.D. 1-500, temporary stability
Chapter 12: A.D. 500-1000, sustained use of coastal and inland zones
Chapter 13: A.D. 1000-1700, a sea of islands and monuments
Chapter 14: A.D. 1700-Present, living with colonialism and globalisation

Part Three: Pursuing research questions
Chapter 15: First inhabiting of a landscape
Chapter 16: Long-term human-environment relations
Chapter 17: Future directions

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Biography

Mike T. Carson (Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Hawaii, 2002) investigates archaeological and palaeo-landscapes throughout the Asia-Pacific region. He currently is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center (MARC), University of Guam, and he is co-editor of Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific, published by University of Hawaii Press.