Crossroads Research

Lecture Series: Archaeology in a Sea of Islands: Ancient Landscapes and Seascapes of Pacific Oceania, by Michael T. Carson

January 26, 2024, 09:00 CET. Online via MS Teams.

When, where, and how did people first live in the remote-distance islands of Pacific Oceania? The answer to this question brings us back in time, uncovering a story in several steps or chapters, spanning a large part of the globe and unfolding over several centuries. The ancient pottery and artifacts, house ruins, caves with rock art, stonework and earthwork monuments, and other evidence in total reveal how people explored and inhabited a broad and diverse Asia-Pacific region, starting at least as early as 4000 years BCE in coastal China and Taiwan and then continuing through 1000 CE or later in the farthest eastward parts of Polynesia. When presented in natural chronological order, the findings illustrate a unified narrative of when, where, and how people through time inhabited an ever-growing and changing world of landscapes and seascapes of a grand sea of islands.

Mike T. CARSON studies archaeology and ancient landscapes of the Asia-Pacific region. His most popular books have included Archaeology of Pacific Oceania: Inhabiting a Sea of Islands (Second Edition, printed in 2024) and Palaeolandscapes in Archaeology: Lessons for the Past and Future (edited volume, 2022). He currently is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam.

To register for the talk, please send us an e-mail.

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