Subject
Western Pacific, Samoa, anamorphosis, isochrone, sailing canoes, [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory

Domains
Archéologie, Sciences Sociales, Sciences humaines

Description

International audience This paper presents a new geometry of the western Pacific based on an analysis of the time necessary for canoes to sail to islands around Samoa. Using methods proposed by Francis Galton in 1866 and 1881, updated by a computer simulation of sailing trajectories, the author demonstrates the existence of a navigational threshold east of Samoa through systematic 'displacement' of islands according to sailing time in winter and summer - a threshold that helps explain the ca 2000 year pause between the Lapita era settlement of Melanesia-West Polynesia and the settlement of East Polynesia.

Keywords

Language
English (en-GB)

Creators
Di Piazza, Anne

Contributors
Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie (CREDO) ; École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)

Sources
ISSN: 1745-5863, EISSN: 1745-5871, Geographical Research, Geographical Research, 2013, online version Sept. 2013. ⟨10.1111/1745-5871.12037⟩

Relation
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1111/1745-5871.12037
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00904202

Coverage
Melanesia

Name of newspaper