The growth and collapse of Pacific island societies

Description

In their accounts of exploration, early European voyagers in the Pacific frequently described the teeming populations they encountered on island after island. Yet missionary censuses and later nineteenth-century records often indicate much smaller populations on Pacific Islands, leading many scholars to debunk the explorers' figures as romantic exaggerations. Recently, the debate over the indigenous populations of the Pacific has intensified, and this book addresses the problem from new perspectives. Were there major population collapses on Pacific Islands following first contact with the West? If so, what were the actual population numbers for islands such as Hawai'i, Tahiti, or New Caledonia? Is it possible to develop new methods for tracking the long-term histories of island populations? These and related questions are at the heart of this new book, which draws together cutting-edge research by archaeologists, ethnographers, and demographers.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The growth and collapse of Pacific island societies: archaeological and demographic perspectivesUniversity of Hawaii Press2006-01-01
• The growth and collapse of Pacific island societiesUniversity of Hawaiʻi Press2007-01-01
• Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island SocietiesUniversity of Hawaii Press2007-01-01