The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific [Paperback]

A reassessment of the settlement of the Pacific, one of the most remarkable episodes in human prehistory.Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts and computer simulations have produced an enormous range of literature on the controversial subject of the exploration and colonization of the Pacific. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of prehistoric settlement.Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts and computer simulations have produced an enormous range of literature on the controversial subject of the exploration and colonization of the Pacific. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of prehistoric settlement.The exploration and colonization of the Pacific is a remarkable episode in human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no knowledge of Pacific geography, no instruments for measuring time and none for exploration. Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts, and computer simulations of voyages have produced an normous range of literature on this controversial subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid, purposeful and undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved.1. An introduction to the Pacific and the theory of its settlement; 2. Pleistocene voyaging and the settlement of Greater Australia and its Near Oceanic neighbours; 3. Issues in Lapita studies and the background to Oceanic colonisation; 4. Against, across and down the wind: a case for the systematic exploration of the remote Pacific; 5. The colonisation of Eastern Melanesia, West Polynesia and Central East Polynesia; 6. The colonisation of Hawaii, New Zealand and their neighbours; 7. Issues in the colonisation of Micronesia; 8. Voyaging by computer: experiments in the exploration of the remote Pacific Ocean; 9. Voyaging after colonisation and the study of culture change; 10. The rediscl²