The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World

Kirch, Patrick Vinton

ISBN 10: 1577180364 / ISBN 13: 9781577180364

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 1997

About this Item

Blackwell Publishers, 1997, muy buen estado.//// Nota de la librería: Si no se especifica en la descripción anterior, los libros no tienen subrayados, anotaciones, firmas o defectos reseñables. ATENCIÓN: EL ENVÍO GRATUITO ES ORDINARIO SIN NÚMERO DE SEGUIMIENTO, y puede sufrir retrasos de varios días. Le dejarán un aviso en el buzón PARA LA RECOGIDA EN OFICINA. PRIORITARIO/CERTIFICADO CON ENTREGA A DOMICILIO POR SOLO 2,90 euros. lx31631.

Seller Inventory # lx31631

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World
• Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1577180364
• ISBN 13: 9781577180364
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Bueno

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first account of the Lapita peoples, the common ancestor of the Polynesians, Micronesians, and Austronesian-speaking Melanesians who over the last 4000 years colonized the islands of the Pacific, including New Zealand and territories as far afield as Fiji and Hawaii. Its purpose is to provide answers to some of the most puzzling archaeological and anthropological questions: who were the Lapita peoples? what was their history? how were they able to travel such great distances? and why did they do so? Recent discoveries (several by the author of this book) have begun at last to yield a coherent picture of these elusive peoples.

Professor Kirch takes the reader back many thousands of years to the earliest evidence of the Lapita peoples. He describes the research itself and conveys the excitement of the first discoveries of Lapita settlements, tools and pottery. He then traces the remarkable cultural development and spread of the Lapita peoples across the unoccupied islands of Eastern Melanesia, Micronesia and Western Polynesia. He shows how they became the progenitors of the Polynesian and Austronesian-speaking Melanesian peoples.

The author describes Lapita sites, communities and landscapes, the development of their decorated ceramics, and their shell-tool industry. He reveals the means by which they accomplished such prodigious voyages and explains why they undertook them. He illustrates his account with specially drawn maps and with a wide range of photographs, many published for the first time.
Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, anthropology, biology and linguistics, and written in clear, non-specialized language, this is an outstanding book of great importance to the history of South-East Asia and the Pacific.

About the Author

Patrick V. Kirch is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Kirch is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of The Wet and Dry (University of Chicago Press, 1994).