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PEOPLING OF OCEANIA: CLARIFYING AN INITIAL SETTLEMENT HORIZON IN THE MARIANA ISLANDS AT 1500 BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2020

Mike T Carson Open the ORCID record for Mike T Carson [Opens in a new window]
Mike T Carson*
Affiliation:
Micronesian Area Research Center, Micronesian Area Research Center, 303 University Drive, Mangilao 96923, Guam; and School of Culture, History, and Language, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Radiocarbon (14C) has been instrumental in clarifying how people came to inhabit the expanse of Pacific Oceania, now supporting an “incremental growth model” that shows a number of long-distance sea-crossing migrations over the last few millennia. A crucial step in this narrative involved the initial settlement of the remote-distance Oceanic region, in the case of the Mariana Islands around 1500 BC. The Marianas case can be demonstrated through delineation of stratigraphic layers, dating of individual points or features within those layers, redundant dating of samples in secure contexts, localized and taxon-specific corrections for marine samples, and cross-constraining dating of superimposed layer sequences. Based on the technical and methodological lessons from the Marianas example, the further steps of the incremental growth model will continue to be refined across Pacific Oceania. Many of these issues may be relevant for broader research of ancient settlement horizons in other regions.

Keywords

chronostratigraphyisland archaeologymarine reservoir correctionregional settlementsettlement horizon
Type
Conference Paper
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 62 , Issue 6: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium , December 2020 , pp. 1733 - 1754
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Copyright
© 2020 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 9th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Symposium, Athens, GA, USA, 20–24 May 2019

References

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