Table of contents

The third book to emerge from the Pouerua Project focuses on the pa itself, and explores the innovative attempt to use archaeological techniques to explore and understand socio-political processes. This book should be of interest to scholars, students and amateur archaeologists and historians.

The exploration and colonisation of the Pacific is a remarkable episode of human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no prior knowledge of Pacific geography, no documents to record their route, no metal, 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 enormous range of literature on this controversial and mysterious subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid and purposeful, undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved. Using an innovative model to establish a detailed theory of navigation, Geoffrey Irwin claims that rather than sailing randomly downwind in search of the unknown, Pacific Islanders expanded settlement by the cautious strategy of exploring upwind, so as to ease their safe return. The author has tested this hypothesis against the chronological data from archaeological investigation, with a computer simulation of demographic and exploration patterns and by sailing throughout the region himself.

Human migration tends to involve more than the odd suitcase or two - we often carry other organisms on our travels, some are deliberately transported, others move by accident. This volume of 12 papers offers a zooarchaeological approach to questions surrounding the nature and extent of human colonization and migration, and the adaptation of humans to new and sometimes extreme or challenging environments. The volume is divided into two parts: Part 1 takes up the theme of Human and Animal Migration and Colonisation. Contributors consider the relationship between human movements and the movements of animals and animal products; case studies look at Neolithic population movements in Oceania, the Norse colonization of Greenland, and the European settlement of Virginia. Part 2 focuses on the topic of Behavioural Variability in the So-Called Marginal Areas. Contributors offer various interpretations of the concept of 'marginality', from climatic extremes of the Arctic cold, and the heat and aridity of western North America, to the geographical remoteness of Patagonia, and the cultural circumstances surrounding the beginnings of transhumant pastoralism in prehistoric southeastern Europe.

David Childress, popular author and star of the History Channel’s show Ancient Aliens, brings us the incredible story of the Cham: Egyptian-Hindu-Buddhist seafarers who ruled a realm that was as big as the Pacific Ocean. The mysterious Cham, or Champa, peoples of Southeast Asia formed a megalith-building, seagoing empire that extended into Indonesia, Fiji, Tonga, Micronesia, and beyond—a transoceanic power that reached Mexico, the American Southwest and South America. The Champa maintained many ports in what is today Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia (particularly on the islands of Sulawesi, Sumatra and Java), and their ships plied the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, bringing Chinese, African and Indian traders to far off lands, including Olmec ports on the Pacific Coast of Central America. Statues in Vietnam of the Champa show men and women distinctly African in appearance and the Champa royalty were known to consist of nearly every racial group. They had iron tools and built megalithic cities of finely-cut basalt and granite, such as the city of My Son in central Vietnam. Its construction is identical to that at Tiwanaku in South America. Topics include: Who Were the Champa?; Cham and Khem: The Egyptian Influence on Cham; The Search for Metals; Trans-Pacific Voyaging; The Basalt City of Nan Madol; Elephants and Buddhists in North America; The Cham and the Olmecs; The Cham in Colombia; The Cham and Lake Titicaca; Easter Island and the Cham; tons more.