Abstract
The first inhabitants of the Mariana Islands targeted specific coastal niches about 1500 B.C. that no longer existed a few centuries later. The best documentation so far of this palaeohabitat is at the Ritidian Site in northern Guam. The landscape structure has been reconstructed for a complete 3,500-year sequence, showing how cultural habitation sites inter-related with the changing environment over time. The results enable a comprehensive natural-cultural history perspective of first Marianas settlement, as a basis to discuss how people selected their first habitation sites, managed their natural resources, and adapted to new and changing conditions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amesbury, J. R. (1999). Changes in species composition of archaeological marine shell assemblages in Guam. Micronesica, 31, 347–366.
Amesbury, J. R. (2007). Mollusk collecting and environmental change during the prehistoric period in the Mariana Islands. Coral Reefs, 26, 947–958.
Athens, J. S., & Ward, J. V. (2004). Holocene vegetation, savanna origins and human settlement of Guam. In V. Attenbrow & R. Fullagar (Eds.), A Pacific Odyssey: Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific: Papers in Honour of Jim Specht (pp. 15–30). Sydney: Records of the Australian Museum.
Bayman, J. M., Kurashina, H., Carson, M. T., Peterson, J. A., Doig, D. J., & Drengson, J. (2012a). Latte household organization at Ritidian, Guam National Wildlife Refuge, Mariana Islands. Micronesica, 42, 258–273.
Bayman, J. M., Kurashina, H., Carson, M. T., Peterson, J. A., Doig, D. J., & Drengson, J. (2012b). Household economy and gendered labor in the 17th Century A.D. on Guam. Journal of Field Archaeology, 37, 259–269.
Bellwood, P. S. (2007). Southeast China and the prehistory of the Austronesians. In T. Jiao (Ed.), Lost Maritime Cultures: China and the Pacific (pp. 36–53). Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.
Bellwood, P., Chambers, G., Ross, M., Hung, H. C. (2011). Are “cultures” inherited? Multidisciplinary perspectives on the origins and migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples prior to 1000 B.C. In B. W. Roberts, M. vander Linden (Eds.), Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission (pp. 321–354). New York: Springer Science and Business Media.
Blust, R. (2009). The Austronesian Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University.
Cabrera, G., & Tudela, H. (2006). Conversations with i man-aniti: Interpretation of discoveries of the rock art in the Northern Mariana Islands. Micronesian Journal of Humanities and the Social Sciences, 5, 42–52.
Carson, M. T. (2010). Radiocarbon chronology with marine reservoir correction for the Ritidian Archaeological Site, northern Guam. Radiocarbon, 52, 1627–1638.
Carson, M. T. (2011). Palaeohabitat of first settlement sites 1500–1000 B.C. in Guam, Mariana Islands, western Pacific. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38, 2207–2221.
Carson, M. T. (2012a). Evolution of an Austronesian landscape: The Ritidian site in Guam. Journal of Austronesian Studies, 3, 55–86.
Carson, M. T. (2012b). An overview of latte period archaeology. Micronesica, 42, 1–79.
Carson, M. T., Hung, H. C., Summerhayes, G., & Bellwood, P. (2013). On the trail of decorative pottery style from Southeast Asia to the Pacific. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 8, 17–36.
Carson, M. T., & Kurashina, H. (2012). Re-envisioning long-distance Remote Oceanic migration: Early dates in the Mariana Islands. World Archaeology, 44, 409–435.
Carson, M. T., & Peterson, J. A. (2011). Calcrete formation and implications for buried archaeological deposits in the Mariana Islands, western Pacific. Geoarchaeology, 26, 501–513.
Carson, M. T., & Peterson, J. A. (2012). Radiocarbon dating of algal bioclasts in beach sites of Guam. Journal of Island and coastal Archaeology, 7, 64–75.
Dickinson, W. R. (2000). Hydro-isostatic and tectonic influences on emergent Holocene paleoshorelines in the Mariana Islands, western Pacific Ocean. Journal of Coastal Research, 16, 735–746.
Dickinson, W. R. (2003). Impact of mid-Holocene hydro-isostatic highstand in regional sea level on habitability of islands in Pacific Oceania. Journal of Coastal Research, 19, 489–502.
Hornbostel, H. (1924). Unpublished field notes, 1921–1924. Manuscript on file. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum Archives.
Hung, H. C. (2008). Neolithic interaction in Southern Coastal China, Taiwan and the Northern Philippines, 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1. Doctoral dissertation. Canberra: the Australian National University.
Hung, H. C., Carson, M. T., Bellwood, P., Campos, F., Piper, P. J., Dizon, E., et al. (2011). The first settlement of remote Oceania: The Philippines to the Marianas. Antiquity, 85, 909–926.
Jalandoni, A. (2011). Casa real or not real? A Jesuit mission house in Guam. M.A. thesis. Diliman: University of the Philippines.
Kirch, P. V. (1997). The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Kurashina, H. (Ed.) (1990). Archaeological Investigations at the Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Ritidian Point, Guam, Mariana Islands. Report prepared for US Department of the Navy. Mangilao: Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam.
Nunn, P. D. (2005). Reconstructing tropical paleoshorelines using archaeological data: Examples from the Fiji Archipelago, Southwest Pacific. Journal of Coastal Research SI, 42, 15–25.
Nunn, P. D. (2007). Space and place in an ocean of islands: Thoughts on the attitudes of the Lapita People towards islands and their colonization. South Pacific Studies, 27, 25–35.
Osborne, D. (n.d.). Chamorro Archaeology. Unpublished manuscript on file. Mangilao: Micronesian area research Center, University of Guam.
Peterson, W. E. (1974a). Summary report of two archaeological sites from northern-eastern Luzon. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania, 9, 26–35.
Peterson, W. E. (1974b). Anomalous archaeology sites of Northern Luzon and models of Southeast Asian prehistory. Ph.D. thesis. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.
Piper, P. J., Hung, H. C., Campos, F. Z., Bellwood, P., & Santiago, R. (2009). A 400-year-old introduction of domestic pigs into the Philippine Archipelago: Implications for understanding routes of human migration through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea. Antiquity, 83, 687–695.
Reed, E. (1952). General Report on Archaeology and History of Guam. Report prepared for Honorable Carlton Skinner, Governor of Guam. Washington, D.C.: US National Park Service.
Reinman, F. M. (1977). An Archaeological Survey and Preliminary Test Excavations on the Island of Guam, Mariana Islands, 1965-1966. Miscellaneous Publications 1. Mangilao: Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam.
Sather, C. (1995). Sea nomads and rainforest hunter-gatherers: foraging adaptations in the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. In P. Bellwood, J. J. Fox, & D. Tryon (Eds.), The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (pp. 245–285). Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University.
Simanjuntak, T. (Ed.). (2008). Austronesian in Sulawesi. Yogyakatra: Center for Prehistoric and Austronesian Studies.
Snow, B. E., Shutler, R., Nelson, D. E., Vogel, J. S., & Southon, J. R. (1986). Evidence of early rice cultivation in the Philippines. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 14, 3–11.
Spriggs, M. (1997). The Island Melanesians. The Peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Summerhayes, G. (2007). The rise and transformations of Lapita in the Bismarck Archipelago. In S. Chiu & C. Sand (Eds.), From Southeast Asia to the Pacific: Archaeological Perspectives on the Austronesian Expansion and the Lapita Cultural Complex (pp. 141–184). Taipei: Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica.
Wickler, S. (2004). Modelling colonization and migration in Micronesia from a zooarchaeological perspective. In M. Mondni, S Munis, S. Wickler (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Council of Archaeozoology, Durham, August 2002 (pp. 28–40). Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carson, M.T. (2014). Long-Term Human-Environment Relations at Ritidian in Guam. In: First Settlement of Remote Oceania. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology, vol 1. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01047-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01047-2_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01046-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01047-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)