Premium
A biocultural perspective on Marianas prehistory: Recent trends in bioarchaeological research
Author(s) -
Hanson Douglas B.,
Butler Brian M.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1096-8644(199711)104:3<271::aid-ajpa2>3.0.co;2-z
Subject(s) - prehistory , subsistence agriculture , geography , archaeology , marine conservation , population , human settlement , zooarchaeology , hunter gatherer , ecology , resource (disambiguation) , biology , agriculture , computer network , demography , sociology , computer science
Fifteen years ago, the biohistory of Micronesia was still a blank slate relative to other regions of the Pacific. Since 1980, however, the Mariana Islands, one of the largest island chains in Micronesia, have been the focus of intensive archaeological investigation and human remains have been ubiquitous components of the archaeological assemblages recovered from the islands of Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. These investigations have provided us with a wealth of new data that will contribute substantially to our understanding of population adaptation to island ecosystems in this part of the Pacific. Much of the recent bioarchaeological research in the Marianas is the product of archaeological mitigation rather than directed research. Consequently, many of our research efforts have been articulated with the needs of cultural resource management (CRM) where research designs focus on several general problem areas: 1) subsistence adaptation with emphasis on the contribution of marine vs. terrestrial resources and the role of pelagic, or deep‐ocean resources in the marine component of the diet; 2) regional (upland vs. coastal; interisland) and temporal variation in subsistence/settlement; and 3) geomorphologic variation in coastal sediments, particularly as influenced by storm events. Am J Phys Anthropol 104:271–290, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.