The Southern Cook Islands in Eastern Polynesian prehistory

Abstract

Recently some of the current models of Eastern Polynesian prehistory have been strongly criticised. It has been argued in particular that archaeologists have neglected investigating the processes of human behaviour underlying colonisation and subsequent culture change. In this thesis an alternative model for Eastern Polynesia is proposed that takes account of some of the most serious of these objections. This model will then be tested using archaeological data from the Southern Cook Islands. In this thesis it is proposed that the prehistory of Eastern Polynesia is greater than the sum total of individual island sequences. Instead, culture change in the region can be best understood in terms of inter-regional processes. It will be shown that voyaging and regular interaction between island communities affected the nature and rate of culture change in Eastern Polynesia. In demonstrating this, a characteristic pattern of Polynesian settlement history, that has its origin in the Lapita cultural complex, will be identified.