The initial discovery and settlement of the islands of Oceania is an important issue in Pacific anthropology. I test. two methods by which new island groups might be discovered: drift voyages and downwind sailing. I focus on the region of the initial eastward expansion into Remote Oceania by the Lapita people. Simulations are driven by high resolution surface wind and current data from atmosphere and ocean models forced by real observations and which capture the high degree of seasonal and interannual variability in the region.
Both drift and sailing voyages can account for the discovery of all the islands in the Lapita region based on initial starting points in the Bismarck and Solomon archipelagos. Eastward crossings are most probable in the Austral summer and fall when the probability of occurence of westerly winds is highest. Contact with islands in the arc from Santa Cruz to New Caledonia is viable in all years and is particularly probable in the Austral summer. Pathways further to the east as far as Tonga and Samoa are plausible when considering anomalous westerlies which occur in certain years. Other key crossings in Polynesia are also possible when considering this interannual variability, much of which is associated with El Nino events. Many of my findings differ from an important, earlier modelling study performed by Levison et al. (1973).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/2279 |
| Date | 26 February 2010 |
| Creators | Avis, Christopher Alexander |
| Contributors | Weaver, Andrew J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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