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Cultural Chronology of Earthworks in Palau, Western Micronesia
Author(s) -
LISTON JOLIE
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4453.2009.tb00047.x
Subject(s) - earthworks , chronology , archaeology , archipelago , radiocarbon dating , georgian , period (music) , architecture , geography , geoarchaeology , prehistory , geology , ancient history , history , art , cartography , philosophy , linguistics , aesthetics
Earth architecture is ubiquitous on Palau's volcanic islands, yet by European contact the often massive interior structures lay unoccupied and were conspicuously absent from the archipelago's rich body of oral traditions. To place these structural remains into Palau's cultural sequence, a suite of 131 radiocarbon dates representing 31 interior earthwork sites is combined with paleoenvironmental and material culture data. The resulting chronological model indicates that substantial interior use was underway by ca. 3100 BP with the initiation of earthwork construction by ca. 2400 BP or a little earlier. This marks the beginning of the Earthwork Era, which is divided into Early, Middle, and Late Phases corresponding to the growth, zenith, and decline of interior earthwork occupation. Between ca. 2050 and 1750 BP extensive clusters of modified terrain, each defining a sociopolitical district, contained earth structures reaching monumental proportions. This is centuries before monumental architecture appeared in most other Pacific island societies. By ca. 1200 BP, earthwork districts were no longer the cultural focal point, although minor construction of inland earthworks continued into the historic period.