Archaeology of Oceania

Oceania comprises the islands of the Pacific Ocean and nearby seas originally settled from Island Southeast Asia by variably related populations over the last 50,000 years. The region is commonly divided into Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, but much archaeological research also references the biogeographic regions Near and Remote Oceania. Near Oceania includes New Guinea and the neighboring Admiralty, Bismarck, and Solomon Islands, all inhabited in the Pleistocene and early Holocene, while Remote Oceania includes the remaining Oceanic islands to the north and east of the Solomons that were settled in two waves beginning approximately 3,000 and 1,000 years ago. Modern archaeology in Oceania has its roots in the comparative ethnology of the region at the beginning of the 20th century, an ethnology influenced by the accounts of European explorers and missionaries from the previous 200 years. This ethnological research described archaeologically relevant behavior, material culture, and landscapes, but it was not until 1947 that the first archaeological excavations were conducted—a late start on the world stage owing to the mistaken belief that there was little time-depth to Oceanic cultures. In the second half of the 20th century, the pace of archaeology in Oceania quickened, with research focused on the chronological sequences of various islands and archipelagos, the geographic origins of particular groups, and changes in political complexity over time. Archaeologists still investigate many of these issues, but the diversity of research topics has increased. Theoretically, archaeological research in Oceania is solidly processual (although additional frameworks are beginning to appear) and this is born out of a decades-old approach to islands as laboratories for comparisons of cultural variation and attendant explanatory processes, particularly evolutionary and ecological ones. More recently, historical archaeology and indigenous archaeology have become prominent perspectives.