Ref ID:	30551
Ref Type:	Journal Article
Authors:	Athens, J. Stephen Dega, Michael F. Ward, Jerome V.
Title:	Austronesian colonisation of the Mariana Islands: the palaeoenvironmental evidence
Date:	2004
Source:	Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
Notes:	Proceedings of the 17th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Taipei, Taiwan 9 to 15 September 2002
Abstract:	Palaeoenvironmental records from a Guam coastal wetland and a Saipan sinkhole document the Holocene environmental history of the Marianas archipelago of the western Pacific. Disturbance indicators, including charcoal particles and pollen of various plant taxa, attest to the arrival of human settlers in the Mariana Islands by the middle fifth millennium BP, one thousand years earlier than suggested by accepted archaeological data. This finding, corroborating other records in the Mariana Islands and mirroring similar records obtained from Palau to the south, argues for a significantly earlier date for initial expansion of Austronesians out of island Southeast Asia and into the Pacific.
Date Created:	9/19/2005
Volume:	24
Page Start:	21
Page End:	30