Vastly Ingenious: The Archaeology of Pacific Material Culture

Description

Reflecting in 1769 on the manners and customs of the South Sea islands, Joseph Banks remarked that 'in every expedient for taking fish they are vastly ingenious.' Hence the title of this book on Pacific material culture, past and present, with broad themes of origins, the movement of peoples and the development of their technologies. Bringing together an impressive group of scholars of Pacific archaeology, the editors have designed the book as both a thoroughly up-to-date and wide-ranging survey and as a festschrift for museum archaeologist Janet Davidson, until recently based at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Contributors: Atholl Anderson, J. Stephen Athens, Helene Martinsson-Wallin and Karen Stothert, Susan Bulmer, David V. Burley and Richard Shutler Jr, Geoffrey Clark and Duncan Wright, Peter Gathercole, Roger C. Green, Geoffrey Irwin, Rod Wallace and Stephanie Green, Kevin L. Jones, Adrienne L Kaeppler, Foss Leach, Helen Leach, Sean Mallon, Nigel Prickett, Paul Rainbird, Yoshiko H. Sinoto, Ian Smith, Jim Specht, Katherine Szabo, and Moira White.

Foss Leach CNZM is a New Zealand prehistorian. A strong advocate of collaborative cross-disciplinary research in archaeological science, he has published more than 100 scientific papers and books. He has contributed scholarly evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal for both the Crown and Maori claimants for hearings of Ngai Tahu, Muriwhenua, Te Rorora and Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. He has carried out archaeological fieldwork in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Micronesia. In 1988 he founded the Archaeozoology Laboratory at the Museum of New Zealand and was its curator until 2001, when he retired. He has served as an officer of many New Zealand and international organisations concerned with archaeology and has held a number of honorary fellowships in New Zealand and abroad.