The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific (Paperback)
$41.78 - Save $0.27 - RRP $42.05 Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific A reassessment of the settlement of the Pacific, one of the most remarkable episodes in human prehistory.
Full description- Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
- Published: 01 July 1994
- Format: Paperback 260 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: History Of Other Lands | Ancient History: To C 500 CE | Archaeology | Prehistoric Archaeology
- ISBN 13: 9780521476515 ISBN 10: 0521476518
- Sales rank: 763,175
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Full description for The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific
The exploration and colonisation of the Pacific is a remarkable episode of human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no prior knowledge of Pacific geography, no documents to record their route, no metal, no instruments for measuring time and none for exploration. Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts, and computer simulations of voyages have produced an enormous range of literature on this controversial and mysterious subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid and purposeful, undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved. Using an innovative model to establish a detailed theory of navigation, Geoffrey Irwin claims that rather than sailing randomly downwind in search of the unknown, Pacific Islanders expanded settlement by the cautious strategy of exploring upwind, so as to ease their safe return. The author has tested this hypothesis against the chronological data from archaeological investigation, with a computer simulation of demographic and exploration patterns and by sailing throughout the region himself.
