Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2011 Feb 1;108(5):1753-4.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1018804108. Epub 2011 Jan 18.

Recalibrating Polynesian prehistory

John Edward Terrell  1
Affiliations
Comment

Recalibrating Polynesian prehistory

John Edward Terrell. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
“The hub of Polynesia, Havai‘i, with its eight radials.” Relying on genealogies and island oral traditions, the Aotearoa New Zealand Maori scholar Peter Buck claimed in 1938 that the settlement of Ra‘iatea (or Havai‘i) and the rest of the Society Islands by early Polynesians happened around the fifth century AD (6). Based on their meta-analysis of 1,434 radiocarbon dates from East Polynesia, Wilmshurst et al. suggest instead a date of ∼1025–1120 AD (3). Reprinted from ref. .
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Fabian J. Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia Univ Press; 1983.
    1. Rieth T, Hunt T. A radiocarbon chronology for Samoan prehistory. J Archaeol Sci. 2008;35:1901–1927.
    1. Wilmshurst JM, Hunt TL, Lipo CP, Anderson AJ. High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108:1815–1820. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Diamond J. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: Viking; 1997.
    1. Diamond J. Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking; 2005.

LinkOut - more resources