Event: Pizza Talk: "Currents and Commodities: How Oceanographic Effects Influenced the Prehistoric Colonization of Islands"

Speaker: Scott Fitzpatrick, University of Oregon

For many island societies worldwide, the acquisition and exchange of prized resources was fundamental to developing and maintaining social, political, and economic relationships. The patchiness of resources like stone, clay, tempering agents, shell, and animals often led to differential access which then helped to fuel the rise of social complexity. This presentation considers questions of resource acquisition as mediated by oceanographic and wind conditions, comparing results from archaeological projects in the Pacific and the Caribbean

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