Genetic insights into the introduction history of black rats into the eastern Indian Ocean

Islands can be powerful demonstrations of how destructive invasive species can be on endemic faunas and insular ecologies. Oceanic islands in the eastern Indian Ocean have suffered dramatically from the impact of one of the world’s most destructive invasive species, the black rat, causing the loss of endemic terrestrial mammals and ongoing threats to ground-nesting birds. We use molecular genetic methods on both ancient and modern samples to establish the origins and minimum invasion frequencies of black rats on Christmas Island and the Cocos-Keeling Islands. We find that each island group had multiple incursions of black rats from diverse geographic and phylogenetic sources. Furthermore, contemporary black rat populations on these islands are highly admixed to the point of potentially obscuring their geographic sources. These hybridisation events between black rat taxa also pose potential dangers to human populations on the islands from novel disease risks. Threats of ongoing introductions from yet additional geographic sources is highlighted by genetic identifications of black rats found on ships, which provides insight into how recent ship-borne human smuggling activity to Christmas Island can negatively impact its endemic species

Taking the High Ground: The archaeology of Rapa, a fortified island in remote East Polynesia (Terra Australis 37)

This volume brings the remote and little known island of Rapa firmly to the forefront of Polynesian archaeology. Thirteen authors contribute 14 chapters, covering not only the basic archaeology of coastal sites, rock shelters, and fortifications, but faunal remains, agricultural development, and marine exploitation. The results, presented within a chronology framed by Bayesian analysis, are set against a background of ethnohistory and ethnology. Highly unusual in tropical Polynesian archaeology are descriptions of artefacts of perishable material. Taking the High Ground provides important insights into how a group of Polynesian settlers adapted to an isolated and in some ways restrictive environment

Taking the High Ground (Terra Australis 37) The archaeology of Rapa, a fortified island in remote East Polynesia

This volume brings the remote and little known island of Rapa firmly to the forefront of Polynesian archaeology. Thirteen authors contribute 14 chapters, covering not only the basic archaeology of coastal sites, rock shelters, and fortifications, but faunal remains, agricultural development, and marine exploitation. The results, presented within a chronology framed by Bayesian analysis, are set against a background of ethnohistory and ethnology. Highly unusual in tropical Polynesian archaeology are descriptions of artefacts of perishable material. Taking the High Ground provides important insights into how a group of Polynesian settlers adapted to an isolated and in some ways restrictive environment

Taking the High Ground: The archaeology of Rapa, a fortified island in remote East Polynesia (Terra Australis 37)

This volume brings the remote and little known island of Rapa firmly to the forefront of Polynesian archaeology. Thirteen authors contribute 14 chapters, covering not only the basic archaeology of coastal sites, rock shelters, and fortifications, but faunal remains, agricultural development, and marine exploitation. The results, presented within a chronology framed by Bayesian analysis, are set against a background of ethnohistory and ethnology. Highly unusual in tropical Polynesian archaeology are descriptions of artefacts of perishable material. Taking the High Ground provides important insights into how a group of Polynesian settlers adapted to an isolated and in some ways restrictive environment

Mid-Holocene cultural dynamics and climatic change in the Western Pacific

The Western Pacific is a region of dramatic contrasts in human history. This chapter reviews the climatic and cultural dynamics in the mid-Holocene period in the Western Pacific region. For both Australia and New Guinea, it is possible to construct plaus

The Ideal Free Distribution, Food Production, and the Colonization of Oceania

Islands in Oceania were some of the last habitable land masses on earth to be colonized by humans. Current archaeological evidence suggests that these islands were colonized episodically rather than continuously, and that bursts of migration were followe

Forest clearance and agricultural expansion on Rapa, Austral Archipelago, French Polynesia

Palynological records from Holocene wetland deposits in East Polynesia have demonstrated widespread ecological changes following Polynesian arrival after c. ad 1200, but linking inferences of human activities to archaeological records has been limited b