Settlement, Survival, and Growth

Alkire, William H. (1978). "Settlement, Survival, and Growth". Coral Islanders. AHM Publishing Corporation. pp. 19–40.

• Has attachment: File:ZT9L6EKD.pdf

Abstract: Man as a component in the wider ecosystem of coral reef life is decidedly a newcomer, probably entering the picture no more than 3 or 4 thousand years ago. Very little archaeological work has been done on coral islands; consequently, the dates of original settlement for particular islands and archipelagoes that have been proposed are approximations usually based on ar chaeological evidence from neighboring volcanic islands. In some cases even this kind of evidence is lacking, and, thus, settlement dates and migration routes have been proposed us ing linguistic similarities and dialect chains as evidence. The first movements into the Pacific involved a slow infiltra tion of bands of nomadic hunters and gatherers from the Asian and Southeast Asian mainland into Indonesia, New Guinea, and possibly Australia (Shutler and Shutler 1975). This transpired over a long span of time beginning some 40,000 years ago, at which time large parts of Indonesia were connected to the mainland by land bridges that emerged during the lower sea levels of the Pleistocene. Even so, the smaller and more distant islands and certainly the coral islands were not settled until a much later date. In fact many of the latter were probably still in early stages of formation, possessing little vegetation and even less fauna, and thus were unsuitable for a people following a hunting and gathering mode of subsistence. The successful 1 9

Extra details:

DOI: 10.3354/meps13838
CorpusID: 241397460
MAG: 3205471437
OpenAlex: W3205471437