I

Island Archaeology water. Large islands may have more in common

with the mainland than with smaller islands, but
Helen Dawson there are still important insights to be gained from
Topoi Excellence Cluster, Freie Universität their comparative study. Thus, while islands are
Berlin, Berlin, Germany not necessarily inherently different from the main-
land, the effects of cultural and environmental
processes are sometimes more evident on islands
Introduction than on the mainland and can be more readily
studied.
The basic premise of island archaeology is to
understand how humans used islands in the past.
Island archaeology considers the geographical
Definition
characteristics of insular spaces as a starting
point for further analysis, often within a compar-
Island archaeology is the systematic and compar-
ative and diachronic framework. In this context,
ative study of island communities, their cultures,
islands are considered to deserve specialist study,
and environments. Islands can be studied both in
with three approaches featuring more prominently
their own right and as a key to understanding
in the literature: (1) islands come in so many
broader issues that may also be relevant to main-
different shapes and forms that their comparison
land settings. The effects of insularity can be
can shed light on several types of human/environ-
assessed both in geographical and cultural terms,
mental adaptations; (2) they are like “laborato-
considering changing relations between nearby
ries,” i.e., microcosms or simpler versions of the
islands and the mainland, phases of relative isola-
mainland; and (3) they have specific characteris-
tion and connectivity, and different insular adap-
tics that set them aside from other geographical
tations and cultural identities. Island
settings.
archaeologists focus on issues including (but not
Not everybody agrees that islands are “special”
limited to) seafaring, migration, colonization, set-
or inherently “different” from mainland situa-
tlement, abandonment, human-environmental
tions: coastal and island locations – for instance –
adaptation, animal extinctions and introductions,
share many features, proximity to the sea being
resource exploitation, and cultural interaction.
the most obvious one. Nevertheless, islands, espe-
With respect to insular cultural identities, similar-
cially small ones, tend to amplify the effects of
ities and differences with nearby islands and
geographical and cultural variables, by virtue of
mainland communities are equally revealing in
being enclosed spaces, completely surrounded by
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_3280-1
2 Island Archaeology
terms of understanding shifting degrees of insu-
larity and the extent of cultural interaction.
Historical and Theoretical Background
The development of island archaeology over the
last 50 or so years reflects mainstream trends in
archaeology, at times experimenting with new
methods and theories. As a result, island archae-
ology has become an eclectic field at a global
scale, while retaining a set of defining features.
Although island environmental studies still fea-
ture prominently on the agenda, a noticeable trend
in recent years is the shift towards a greater cul-
tural focus. Key questions remain: in what way
does insularity affect culture? And, conversely, do
communities actively define their cultures and
identity through insularity? Does it matter that it
is on an island?
The following two papers provide useful his-
torical and critical overviews of the development
of the subject: (1) Matthew Spriggs (2008) wrote a
chapter for a book entitled “Islands of Inquiry.
Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of
maritime landscapes” (edited by Geoffrey Clark,
Foss Leach, and Sue O’Connor); (2) Cherry and
Leppard (2014) wrote a review of island archae-
ology with a focus on the Mediterranean in “The
Cambridge prehistory of the Bronze Age – Iron
Age Mediterranean” (edited by Bernard
A. Knapp and Peter Van Dommelen). Elements
of this entry are also drawn from published and
forthcoming work by the current author (Dawson
2014).
Following the “diffusionist” or “migrationist”
paradigm prevalent in the 1950s–1960s, islands
were originally considered as places vulnerable to
outside influences or, alternatively, as backwaters,
effectively isolated from mainstream change. As
Spriggs (2008) points out, it was Margaret Mead
(1957) who introduced the concept of “islands as
laboratories” (whose origins can be traced back to
early European travelers to the Pacific) to main-
stream academia in the 1950s. According to this
principle, islands are ideal laboratories for study-
ing ecosystems and societies, not because of their
intrinsic isolation, but rather because “by studying
clusters of islands, biologists view a simpler
microcosm of the seemingly infinite complexity
of continental and oceanic biogeography”
(MacArthur and Wilson 1967: 3). A paper by
Vayda and Rappaport on “Island Cultures”
(1963) explained how this might work in practice,
by spelling out some key principles: the so-called
“founder” effect could explain why island com-
munities diverge from their mainland parent
populations (because of the limited size of the
founder population), while the “rescue” effect
explained why extinction is less likely to occur
on islands that are within “commuting” distance
of a replenishing source. These ideas were
expressed mathematically in a seminal book enti-
tled The Theory of Island Biogeography, by
MacArthur and Wilson (1967). The authors for-
mulated a theory, which stated that immigration
and extinction on an island would reach equilib-
rium over time and that this process was affected
by island size and distance to the mainland
(or intervening stepping stone islands).
Simberloff and Wilson (1969) subsequently
devised an experiment to prove the theory and
were able to demonstrate the effects of distance,
in terms of relative and differential isolation, on
island arthropod populations. Such “controlled
conditions” (measureable in terms of size and
distance) made islands similar to a natural
laboratory.
In the 1970s, “processual” archaeologists
began to adopt these ideas and engage with
islands in their own right, emphasizing local
developments and – inspired by the scientific
rigor of island biogeography – searching for gen-
eral and cross-cultural questions. Evans (1973)
introduced the laboratory analogy to the Mediter-
ranean islands. By this time, the radiocarbon rev-
olution had revealed the fallacy of the diffusionist
paradigm: for instance, in the Mediterranean, the
megalithic cultures of Malta were shown to be
much earlier than the Mycenaean remains that
ought to have inspired them. Evans noted that
the islands in the Mediterranean were not as
remote as those in the Pacific, yet he considered
the development of Malta’s unique temples as the
result of the island’s cultural isolation during that
particular period in prehistory. While he conceded
Island Archaeology
that the Mediterranean was a highway rather than
a barrier for contact, the idea of islands developing
distinct cultures in isolation had a lasting legacy
among Mediterranean archaeologists.
In 1981, Cherry wrote an article applying
island biogeography in the Mediterranean using
the area/distance parameters to explain differ-
ences in the rates of island colonization, an
approach that for initial (Neolithic) settlement
still holds relevance even in light of new data
and discoveries some 20 years later (Dawson
2014). Island biogeography takes into consider-
ation also cultural factors which may explain how
communities overcome spatial limitations: dis-
tance (in terms of travel time) can effectively
shrink through progress in boat technology (e.g.,
paddling vs. sailing), and even size and elevation
have a relative rather than absolute effect on island
settlement (such limitations can be overcome,
e.g., through terracing or networks).
Cyprian Broodbank (2000) drew inspiration
from the Pacific for his study of the Cycladic
islands (Greece), where he adapted Terrell’s
(1977) “proximal point analysis” to predict pat-
terns of connections between different islands and
used it to develop his “islandscape” approach.
This marked an important shift in island archae-
ology in the Mediterranean, which until then had
been preoccupied with islands being isolated
rather than being connected. Broodbank instead
viewed insularity as “culturally constructed,”
“historically contingent,” and “liable to change”
(2000: 13).
Further developments were contained in a vol-
ume edited by Scott Fitzpatrick in 2004. Biolog-
ical endemism can be explained by physical
isolation (or the unlikelihood of plants and some
animals to cross water bodies unaided); in con-
trast, water does not pose a barrier in the same way
for humans. Since cultural isolation rarely
occurred, the application of the “islands as labo-
ratory” in archaeology is problematic and can
work only as long as we recognize that it is the
archaeologists themselves who treat islands “as if
they were isolated” (Terrell 1999: 241, in
Fitzpatrick 2004: 5). The “idea” of a boundary
sets islands aside from the mainland (Fitzpatrick
2004: 7) and emerges from the fact that they are
3
well defined spaces: according to Terrell (1999:
240), they represent “living spaces surrounded by
a considerable shift in habitat.” Our ability to
perceive of these spaces as distinct places is not
limited to islands (it can also apply to other spaces
surrounded by changes in habitat, such as
enclosed valleys or oases); however, islands are
more easily comparable, which makes them par-
ticularly attractive case studies.
In 2007, Paul Rainbird expressed his concerns
regarding the legitimacy of an island archaeology
approach arguing instead in favor of an archaeol-
ogy of the sea, emphasizing similarities between
island and coastal communities, as opposed to
differences, thus ultimately focusing on connec-
tions rather than on isolation. His focus on the sea,
however, treats island communities as consis-
tently maritime in character, which is not always
the case. In a volume entitled “Comparative island
archaeologies,” Conolly and Campbell (2008: iii)
also argued that islands are not “privileged spaces
to understand the past” while claiming that
“islands are still good places to ‘do’ archaeology.”
Later on, they admit that islands “offer a unique
perspective on human ecology because of their
(usually) geographically circumscribed nature”
(2008: 111, my emphasis). These statements, in
apparent contradiction with each other, underline
the evident paradox at the heart of island archae-
ology, which can be summed up as follows: “the
separation of islands facilitated interaction”
(Fitzpatrick 2004: 9). Assessing a community’s
relative isolation and connectivity and their
effects over time, both in light of geographical
categories and historically contingent factors,
remains the real strength of a comparative island
archaeological approach. Though tempting, it is
hard to generalize about islands: island archaeol-
ogy “implies comparison of insularity at different
places and periods” (Renfrew 2004: 282).
Island archaeology has developed more readily
in the Pacific and in the Mediterranean, with a few
notable exceptions. Curet (2004: 187) lamented
“the near absence of the Caribbean in the debate
surrounding issues of island archaeology” while
arguing that the archaeological record from the
Caribbean islands “contradicted . . . the idea of
islands as appropriate units of analysis,” since
4 Island Archaeology
communities on adjacent islands often had more
in common than with people on opposite sides of
the same island (Curet 2004: 191). In contrast, the
editors of the recent Oxford Handbook of the
Caribbean Archaeology stated in their introduc-
tion that the island provides a useful point of
departure given that “at a general level of compar-
ison, cultural differences in the Caribbean corre-
spond to differences in the islands and their
configurations” (Keegan et al. 2013: 3).
The comparison between geographical and
cultural units is therefore one of the strengths of
an island archaeological approach. Identities and
cultures are not bounded in the same way as
space: culture spills over the edges of geography.
Anthropologists have noted that cultural groups
are very rarely isolated, on the contrary they tend
to develop from interaction (Eriksen 1993).
Islands are not closed microcosms, but they pro-
vide fertile grounds for the comparative study of
cultural interaction, which may result both in cul-
tural similarities and differences, and contribute to
the creation of distinctive island identities.
Island archaeology also has potentially a great
contribution to make to island communities in the
present. Such communities are braced against
considerable challenges and – in extreme cases –
threats to their natural and cultural heritage,
mostly arising from the effects of climatic and
environmental change. Numerous initiatives
(such as the IHOPE Islands project) are develop-
ing policies to tackle these issues. Islands are often
considered to illustrate how humans have
impacted on the environment, whether positively
and negatively, and to provide particularly good
examples of both vulnerability and resilience.
Islanders may act shortsightedly, wreaking an
ecological catastrophe on themselves; alterna-
tively, they may be custodians of precious tradi-
tional knowledge that can be used to mitigate such
threats. Easter Islanders are a case in point: they
have been portrayed both as responsible for their
own “eco-suicide” (Bahn and Flenley 1992) and
as a “sustainable society” (Hunt and Lipo 2011).
The unfortunate down-side of such polarized
views is that they tend to turn islands into stereo-
types: vulnerability and resilience are not absolute
categories, rather their meaning has to be
contextualized (Kelman 2018). Such discussions
should take into account what islanders them-
selves have to say (Kelman 2018).
Island Archaeology in Practice
Archaeological survey has a long tradition in
island archaeology and – especially when com-
bined with excavation and palaeoenvironmental
reconstructions – is arguably the most productive
tool for island investigation as it allows compara-
tive and diachronic study (see “Further Reading”
for examples). Island survey is closely allied to
spatial analysis, with Geographical Information
Systems in particular being widely applied to
survey data in order to study changing site distri-
butions in time and space. GIS-based spatial anal-
ysis focuses not just on intra-island site relations
but also at the inter-island scale, for example,
using intervisibility analysis and modeling mari-
time travel. Underwater surveys encompass the
seascape (submerged coastlines, structures, ship-
wrecks) and combined with terrestrial surveys can
tell us about maritime contact (e.g., exotic mate-
rials, which might indicate long-distance
exchange).
Network analysis is another natural ally of
island archaeology since it captures connections
at multiple scales (see “Further Reading” section).
Islands or sites within them provide easily recog-
nizable nodes, and evidence of contact can be
used to connect them and create “edges”
(or links) in order to reconstruct a network. Net-
work analysis can be used – for example – to
explain why islands lacking resources may sup-
port a sizeable population, to explain the success
of a community as it benefits from the network
and its potential decline if it relies excessively on
the outside world for survival. Networks can be
descriptive (presence/absence or frequencies of
certain classes of material) and exploratory.
Point Proximal Analysis (PPA) was one of the
first applications of network analysis employed
by archaeologists (and all it required was a pencil
and ruler! John Terrell pers. comm. 2018). In PPA,
each node is linked to its nearest three or four
neighbors; these can either be sites that are
Island Archaeology
geographically nearest or share the highest simi-
larity with respect to certain archaeological fea-
tures. Nodes may represent known sites or
hypothetical locations and those with more con-
nections are considered more central. PPA can
also adopt a “fixed radius” model to simulate the
creation of networks: here all the nodes that lie
within a certain distance are connected. Terrell
(1977) pioneered this in his study of the Solomon
Islands and Broodbank (2000) to his study of
interaction in the Bronze Age Cyclades, which
simulated the range of travel of a canoe and
sailing boat.
Islands offer useful case studies also for
exploring qualitative aspects of space. A distinct
feature of islands is their “sense of place,” which
arises from their being bounded by the sea, and is
particularly evident on smaller islands, where the
coastline is more conspicuous. Studies of present-
day islanders suggest that such clear terrestrial
boundaries foster a strong sense of community
derived by geography: physical containment
results in strong place identification. Archaeolo-
gists working on islands have begun to explore
these insights through phenomenological field-
work, employing methods that highlight specific
qualities of insular spaces (e.g., stone quarrying
on Easter Island, see section on “Further
Reading”).
Key Issues/Current Debates
Island archaeology is an interdisciplinary
endeavor that combines environmental and cul-
tural approaches. It is about understanding
degrees of isolation and connectivity: an island
may be geographically remote/close, and cultur-
ally inward/outward looking, but there are no
general rules and ultimately insularity is shaped
both by geography and culture. Although cultural
isolation is not a necessary consequence of phys-
ical containment, islands are broadly considered
as more isolated in comparison to noninsular loca-
tion. The sea is not a barrier for contact, but the
effects of winds and currents on seafaring tech-
nology at different times cannot be ignored either:
5
connectivity takes place despite the obvious chal-
lenges of insularity.
In the Pacific, for example, there is still little
agreement on the relative weight of archaeologi-
cal, biological, and linguistic data in substantiat-
ing both isolation and interaction (Cochrane and
Hunt 2017). Theories on the colonization of this
region differ between a phylogenetic approach
(a common ancestral population split into separate
groups that colonized separate islands or archipel-
agos and underwent cultural, linguistic, and bio-
logical evolution in relative isolation) and a
reticulate approach (cultural similarities and dif-
ferences cannot be explained by branching pat-
terns of descent but by patterns of relatedness)
(see discussion in Cochrane and Hunt 2017).
Another current debate surrounds the increas-
ingly earlier evidence of island colonization
emerging from the Pacific (recently reviewed by
Bellwood in 2017) where hominin occupation
currently goes back to at least a million years
ago and modern human occupation to at least
50,000 years ago (see “Further Reading” for indi-
vidual references). Homo floresiensis, popularly
known as “the hobbit,” made headlines when it
was first discovered in 2003 on the island of
Flores, as it was shown to be a new species,
somehow capable of crossing water and coloniz-
ing new land. “Hobbit” fossils belonging to a
number of individuals at the Liang Bua cave
were arguably dated to between 95,000 and
17,000 years ago. Different locations in Flores
have since yielded tools often associated with
butchered animal remains: they were dated to
about one million years BP (at a site called Wolo
Sege) and 700,000 BP (at Mata Menge, where
hominin remains were also found). If they repre-
sent hobbit’s ancestors, the species’ prolonged
isolation could explain the dwarfism. Recent
reports from the Philippines (at Kalinga cave)
also place their earliest colonization date around
700,000 BP.
Evidence pertaining to our own species is use-
fully summarized in the recent Oxford Handbook
of Prehistoric Oceania (O’Connor and Hiscock
2017): an open sea crossing was necessary to
reach Sahul (a palaeolandmass comprising
Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea) from
6 Island Archaeology

Sunda (an area now submerged along the edge of working on Africa’s islands and in the Indian
southernmost Eurasia). This happened over Ocean are yet to fully engage with these debates
50,000 years ago and required navigating across (see “Further Reading”).
the vast region of Wallacea with its 17,000 Island archaeology is also becoming more inte-
islands. Remains at the Callao Cave (northern grated into the broad field of island studies, which
Luzon, Philippines) were directly dated to circa is likely to prove highly beneficial since new
67,000 BP: they may represent the descendants of insights can be gained from the study of present-
the Kalinga cave occupants or a new wave of day island communities and the issues they face.
colonization. In Near Oceania, the earliest occu- Current debates can be relevant to our understand-
pation in the Bismarck Archipelago to the north- ing of past communities; in return, the archaeo-
east of New Guinea, and caves sites in East Timor, logical record anchors such issues to a long-term
has been dated to ca. 43,000 years BP and in perspective (the journal Shima is a prime example
surrounding islands ca. 20,000 years ago. of this potential).
This growing body of evidence has important
repercussions for our understanding of subse-
quent migrations out of Africa and associated
Future Directions
seafaring capacities – whether the sea posed a
barrier or a passage for mobility, both for our
Island archaeology is of growing interest and con-
species and earlier ones – and the purposefulness
cern as islands are at the forefront of global envi-
or accidentalness of such endeavors. The evidence
ronmental change. Islands are still relatively
of such early water crossings from Island South
unexplored so that there is great potential for
East Asia has given an impetus to research else-
new discoveries and for their continued contribu-
where, with archaeological fieldwork targeting
tion to cognate fields of study, particularly land-
areas that could represent likely landfalls and
scape, environmental, and bioarchaeology (in
favorable ecological niches. The earliest evidence
particular, stable isotope and aDNA analysis
for island colonization in the Mediterranean at
with regards to processes of island colonisation).
present comes from the Aegean (see “Further
Islands’ contribution to archaeological theory has
Reading” section). Recently discovered stone
already been outlined above and will continue to
tools in Crete and Naxos have been dated to the
be a fertile testing ground in the future, as it
Lower and Middle Palaeolithic (as early as
encourages both categorical and relational think-
c. 300,000 BP). This early dating has been chal-
ing. Finally, island archaeology may be going
lenged on a number of accounts: there are no
through a revival of the “island laboratory” con-
actual anthropological remains and the sites are
cept, as researchers reconsider the value of con-
dated indirectly (either on typological grounds or
sidering global issues through the lenses of
based on the geological strata where the tools
insularity. As the systematic study of islands con-
were embedded). Work on both islands is
tinues to shed light on human-environmental
ongoing.
adaptation, it is becoming increasingly relevant
to society. The study of islands communities,
past and present, holds great potential for the
International Perspectives
future, in terms of understanding current societal
concerns, environmental challenges, demo-
While still relatively “young,” island archaeology
graphic movements, and the issues faced by
has already developed a strong international out-
small communities in a context of globalization.
look. While the southern Pacific remains its natu-
ral “home,” advances in the Mediterranean
especially, followed by the northern Pacific and
Caribbean, have been particularly significant in
the last two decades. In contrast, archaeologists
Island Archaeology
Cross-References
▶ Greek Islands (Excluding Crete), Archaeology
of
▶ Italy, Sicily, Malta, and the Lipari Islands:
Prehistory
▶ Pacific Islands: Finding the Earliest Sites
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8 Island Archaeology
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