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Prehistory and human ecology in Eastern Polynesia: Excavations at Tangatatau Rockshelter, Mangaia, Cook Islands
Author(s) -
Kirch Patrick V.,
Steadman David W.,
Butler Virginia L.,
Hather Jon,
Weisler Marshall I.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4453.1995.tb00330.x
Subject(s) - prehistory , archaeology , excavation , geography , zooarchaeology , ecology , biology
The Tangatatau Rockshelter (site MAN‐44, Mangaia, Cook Islands) has produced one of Eastern Polynesia's most comprehensive chrono‐stratigraphic sequences of artifacts, vertebrate and invertebrate fauna, and botanical materials. Two seasons of excavation exposed 29 m 2 out of an estimated total floor area of 225 m 2 . A suite of 30 radiocarbon age determinations indicates that human use of the shelter spanned the period from ca. 1000 to 1700 cal AD. This paper outlines the major temporal trends in the artifact, faunal, and paleoethnobotanical assemblages recovered from the site, and discusses these in terms of the development of classic Mangaian society, an exemplar of Polynesian ‘Open’ chiefdoms.