Abstract

Various theoretical statements in the 1970's and 1980's by Howells, Bellwood, Pietrusewsky, Brace & Hinton, Terrell, and Houghton on the likely biological origins and affinities of populations which settled the geographic areas of Melanesia and Polynesia are outlined. They serve to highlight some of the background issues involved in a set of papers assembled here that constitutes the first thorough examination of human burials associated with the Lapita cultural complex. These are the only skeletal materials recovered so far from the Oceanic area to bear directly on the nature of the biological populations present in Island Melanesia and Western Polynesia 3,500 to 2,100 years ago and as such allow limited assessment of the different theories which to date have largely been derived from the analysis of either fairly recent palaeobiological evidence or from the study of still living populations.

 
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Bibliographic Data

Short Form
Green, 1989, Rec. Aust. Mus. 41(3): 207–213
Author
Roger C. Green
Year
1989
Title
Lapita People: an introductory context for skeletal materials associated with pottery of this cultural complex
Serial Title
Records of the Australian Museum
Volume
41
Issue
3
Start Page
207
End Page
213
DOI
10.3853/j.0067-1975.41.1989.142
Language
en
Plates
plate i and preface
Date Published
30 November 1989
Cover Date
30 November 1989
ISSN (print)
0067-1975
CODEN
RAUMAJ
Publisher
The Australian Museum
Place Published
Sydney, Australia
Subjects
ANTHROPOLOGY; ARCHAEOLOGY; NEW GUINEA; OCEAN: PACIFIC
Digitized
24 November 2008
Available Online
08 December 2008
Reference Number
142
EndNote
142.enw
Title Page
142.pdf
File size: 111kB
Complete Work
142_complete.pdf
File size: 1196kB