Prehistory in the Pacific Islands - Hardcover

Terrell, John E.

9780521306041: Prehistory in the Pacific Islands

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521306043 ISBN 13: 9780521306041

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1986

How, asks John Terrell in this richly illustrated and original book, can we best account for the remarkable diversity of the Pacific Islanders in biology, language, and custom? Traditionally scholars have recognized a simple racial division between Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians, Australians, and South-east Asians: peoples allegedly differing in physical appearance, temperament, achievements, and perhaps even intelligence. Terrell shows that such simple divisions do not fit the known facts and provide little more than a crude, static picture of human diversity.

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From the Back Cover:

In a fresh and stimulating study that brings to bear a wide range of data drawn from anthropology, archaeology, geography, biogeography, human ecology and linguistics, Dr. Terrell poses a whole series of unfolding and interlinked questions about prehistoric life in the Pacific that effectively unite the human imagination with logical and empirical methods of evaluation.

Review:

"...a very useful and enlightening book. Its scope extends far beyond the limits of Polynesian and prehistoric research." Anthropologica

"...a stimulating and critical assessment of the history of the Pacific islands." New Scientist

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