Paper short abstract:

Atolls are good for the 'islandscape' study. The anthropogenic landscape of agricultural pits, in particular, is a historical product of entanglement between two agencies, nature and human. I will show an archaeological contribution to the perspective through a case study of Pukapuka Atoll.

Paper long abstract:

Oceanic atolls are typical instances fitting in with the perspective of 'islandscape.' The precarious islets of sand and gravel were formed by wave energy on Holocene coral reef, and sea currents or sea birds transported seeds of littoral vegetation, which took root on the low and flat islets. Pisonia could grow into forest providing a habitat for sea birds, droppings of which added nutrient rich soil, while human colonization drastically increased the variety of vegetation including coconut palm, breadfruit and taro. Taro tubers are cultivated in agricultural pits which were dug into the water table of freshwater lens. I have conducted archaeological surveys of agricultural pits in several atolls. As most atolls in the remote Oceania have been less affected with deposits of volcanic ashes and alluvial sediments, it was normally harder to stratigraphically excavate prehistoric sites. However, it has now become clear through our surveys that we can see stratigraphic sediments at spoil banks surrounding agricultural pits. These banks are of secondary deposition which was artificially piled up, but this human-induced sedimentation covers cultural deposits in a good condition, from which we can also frequently obtain charcoal flecks for the dating analysis. Construction of agricultural pits should be a crucial factor affecting human settlement in the severe atoll environment, and their spoil banks would provide archaeologists with chronological information of this anthropogenic landscape. I will show an archaeological contribution to the study of 'islandscape' histories through our research results mainly of Pukapuka Atoll in the northern Cook Islands.