Evolutionary Theory in Pacific Island Archaeology

TL;DR

This paper reviews the role of evolutionary theory in Pacific Island archaeology, highlighting its historical development, current approaches, and future potential as a key framework for understanding cultural change.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of how evolutionary concepts have been applied and evolved within Pacific archaeology, emphasizing recent Darwinian mechanisms and environmental data integration.

Findings

Evolutionary theory has been central to Pacific archaeology since early stages.

Recent research incorporates Darwinian mechanisms like selection and drift.

Evolutionary framework remains vital and increasingly sophisticated in the region.

Abstract

Evolution is the principal theoretical framework in Pacific Island archaeology. Progressive cultural evolutionary stages, particularly the chiefdom, provided the earliest framework. These ideas were increasingly linked to islands as relatively isolated laboratories of cultural evolution and diversification, albeit their populations phylogenetically linked in a series of ancestral and descendant societies. With more sophisticated environmental data, much research has investigated cultural adaptations and their homologous or analogous origins. Most recently, Darwinian mechanisms of transmission, selection, and drift comprise an important approach. The history of evolution in Pacific archaeology suggests it will continue as a useful theoretical framework, perhaps more so than in other world regions.