Abstract
Late Quaternary low stands of sea level, and particularly those which preceded the Holocene transgression, are believed to have major significance in influencing the migration of indigenous peoples. This is thought to be particularly true in the southwestern Pacific where chains of islands offer, at first impression, convenient ‘stepping stones’. However, the evidence currently available casts doubts on the ability of contemporary would-be colonists to cross the gaps which remained even when sea level was at its lowest.
Migrations did take place, thus we must ask if the evidence is complete. Do we wrongly start from the remains of the dispossessed? Is the evidence only a degraded descent from the best? Much of the evidence lies submerged and thus difficult, if not now impossible, to recover, but submarine archaeological investigations in the southwestern Pacific offer striking possibilities.
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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Smith, A.J. (1989). Archaeology and Sea-Level Change in the Southwestern Pacific: No Simple Story. In: Scott, D.B., Pirazzoli, P.A., Honig, C.A. (eds) Late Quaternary Sea-Level Correlation and Applications. NATO ASI Series, vol 256. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0873-4_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0873-4_10
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