Journal article
Revising ideas about environmental determinism: Human-environment relations in the Pacific Islands
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol.44(1), pp.63-72
2003
Abstract
Rapid cooling and sea-level fall around AD 1300, perhaps accompanied by increased storminess, had major impacts on Pacific Island environments including water-table fall, reef-surface death, increased lagoonal turbidity, and the conversion of seawater embayments to brackish-water wetlands. These environmental changes had severe and lasting impacts on Pacific Island societies, largely associated with a massive (perhaps 80 per cent) reduction in the food resource base on some islands. Conflict ensued, coastal villages were abandoned on high islands in favour of fortified inland sites, settlements on large atoll islands were dispersed. It is clear that environmental change a the major cause of last-millennium cultural transformation in the Pacific Islands, a conclusion which is likely to apply elsewhere.
Details
- Title
- Revising ideas about environmental determinism: Human-environment relations in the Pacific Islands
- Authors
- Patrick Nunn (Author) - University of the South Pacific, Fiji
- Publication details
- Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol.44(1), pp.63-72
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
- Date published
- 2003
- DOI
- 10.1111/1467-8373.00184
- ISSN
- 1360-7456
- Organisation Unit
- Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research; School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Law and Society; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450418802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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