People Of The Pacific

Catalog description

The Pacific was the last major region of the globe to be colonized by humans. The settlement of Near Oceania (New Guinea and the Northern Solomon Islands) is dated to the Pleistocene, while Remote Oceania (the remaining portion of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia) was not inhabited until the Holocene (<3,500 years ago). This course will begin with an examination of the archaeological, linguistic and biological diversities of the people of the Pacific that form the basis of our understanding of the colonization of this region and then proceed to selected current topics of the region including political self-determination and the effect of global warming.