Archaeological Perspectives on Conflict and Warfare in Australia and the Pacific
- 280 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Archaeological Perspectives on Conflict and Warfare in Australia and the Pacific
About this book
When James Boswell famously lamented the irrationality of war in 1777, he noted the universality of conflict across history and across space â even reaching what he described as the gentle and benign southern ocean nations. This volume discusses archaeological evidence of conflict from those southern oceans, from Palau and Guam, to Australia, Vanuatu and Tonga, the Marquesas, Easter Island and New Zealand. The evidence for conflict and warfare encompasses defensive earthworks on Palau, fortifications on Tonga, and intricate pa sites in New Zealand. It reports evidence of reciprocal sacrifice to appease deities in several island nations, and skirmishes and smaller scale conflicts, including in Easter Island. This volume traces aspects of colonial-era conflict in Australia and frontier battles in Vanuatu, and discusses depictions of World War II materiel in the rock art of Arnhem Land. Among the causes and motives discussed in these papers are pressure on resources, the ebb and flow of significant climate events, and the significant association of conflict with culture contact. The volume, necessarily selective, eclectic and wide-ranging, includes an incisive introduction that situates the evidence persuasively in the broader scholarship addressing the history of human warfare.
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Table of contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- 1. Archaeological perspectives on conflict and warfare in Australia and the Pacific
- 2. War is their principal profession: On the frequency and causes of Maori warfare and migration 1250â1850 CE
- 3. Violence and warfare in Aboriginal Australia
- 4. Warfare in Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
- 5. Traditional places in conflict and their historic context: Ritidian, Guam
- 6. The ʻenata way of war: An ethnoarchaeological perspective on warfare dynamics in the Marquesas Islands
- 7. Practical defensive features in Palauâs earthwork landscape
- 8. High-resolution lidar analysis of the Fisi Tea defensive earthwork at Lapaha, Kingdom of Tonga
- 9. Geospatial analysis of fortification locations on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga
- 10. The fortified homestead of the Australian frontier
- 11. Archives, oral traditions and archaeology: Dissonant narratives concerning punitive expeditions on Malakula Island, Vanuatu
- 12. Invisible women at war in the West: An archaeology of the Australian Womenâs Army Service camp, Walliabup (Bibra Lake), Western Australia, c. 1943â1945
- 13. Painting war: The end of contact rock art in Arnhem Land
- Contributors