Biogeography and Ecology of New Guinea
Biogeography and Ecology of New Guinea

Author: J.L. Gressit

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 962

ISBN-13: 9400986327

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J. L. Gressitt New Guinea is a fantastic island, unique and fascinating. It is an area of incredible variety of geomorphology, biota, peoples, languages, history, tradi tions and cultures. Diversity is its prime characteristic, whatever the subject of interest. To a biogeographer it is tantalizing, as well as confusing or frustrating when trying to determine the history of its biota. To an ecologist, and to all biologists, it is a happy hunting ground of endless surprises and unanswered questions. To a conservationist it is like a dream come true, a "flash-back" of a few centuries, as well as a challenge for the future. New Guinea is so special that it is hard to compare it with other islands or tropical areas. It is something apart, with its very complicated history (chapters I: 2-4, II: 1-4, III: I, VI: I, 2). It is partly old but to a great extent very young, yet extremely rich and complex. It has biota of different sources - to such a degree that it is still disputed in this volume as to what Realm it belongs to: the Paleotropical or Notogaean (Australian); or what Region: Oriental, "Oceanic," Papuan or Australian. The terms Papuasian, Indo-Australian and Australasian also have been applied to the area.

Talepakemalai
Talepakemalai

Author: Brian S Bauer

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1950446239

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The Lapita Cultural Complex--first uncovered in the mid-20th century as a widespread archaeological complex spanning both Melanesia and Western Polynesia--has subsequently become recognized as of fundamental importance to Oceanic prehistory. Notable for its highly distinctive, elaborate, dentate-stamped pottery, Lapita sites date to between 3500-2700 BP, spanning the geographic range from the Bismarck Archipelago to Tonga and Samoa. The Lapita culture has been interpreted as the archaeological manifestation of a diaspora of Austronesian-speaking people (specifically of Proto-Oceanic language) who rapidly expanded from Near Oceania (the New Guinea-Bismarcks region) into Remote Oceania, where no humans had previously ventured. Lapita is thus a foundational culture throughout much of the southwestern Pacific, ancestral to much of the later, ethnographically-attested cultural diversity of the region.