Alex E Morrison
Biographic Data
| ID | 268598 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex E Morrison |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex E |
| FAMILY NAME | Morrison |
| SIGNATURE | MORRISON A E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, New Zealand |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
East Polynesian Islands as Models of Cultural Divergence: The Case of Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti
The diverse island societies of East Polynesia are well-suited as models for comparative evolutionary analysis. Settled ca. 750 BP by a common ancestral population, colonists of the remote corners of the Pacific shared a pool of cultural traits that included commensal species, language, technology, and other cultural practices. Following colonization however, island populations diverged in language, subsistence practices, degree of territoriality…
The Sāmoa Archaeological Geospatial Database: Initial description and application to settlement pattern studies in the Sāmoan Islands
Jeff Clark's archaeological research on Eastern Tutuila Island provided the first regional scale settlement pattern data in American Samoa that could be meaningfully compared to earlier data drawn from projects on the archipelago's western islands, Savaiʻi and ʻUpolu. Building on Clark's work, in this paper we generate a spatial and temporal geodatabase incorporating 900 archaeological sites and 520 age estimates spanning the entirety of the Sāmo…
Agent-based modelling, molluscan population dynamics, and archaeomalacology
Archaeological and sedimentological data indicate Lapita settlement on a newly formed coastal plain: Tavua Island, Mamanuca Group, Fiji
The timing and choice of initial settlement location are examined on the small island of Tavua in Fiji’s Mamanuca Group. The mid- to late-Holocene sea-level retreat influenced the island’s coastal landforms through the acceleration of coastal progradation and the production of habitable land. Archaeological, sedimentological, and chronological data are integrated to better understand the island’s settlement and geomorphological history. These dat…
Pre‐contact fish choice and foraging efficiency at Tula, American Sāmoa
Marine foraging is an under‐studied aspect of Sāmoan archaeology, although it clearly played a primary role in subsistence, with implications for settlement and demography. A pair of previous ichthyoarchaeological studies identified general stability in fish exploitation during ∼1500–2000 year sequences. We present a foraging‐theory‐based analysis of fish remains from Tula Village, Tutuila Island. Our results identify a decrease in foraging effic…
Human behavioural ecology and Pacific archaeology
The diverse islands of Oceania are ideal locations for the study of human ecology. Here, we argue that human behavioural ecology (HBE) provides a useful theoretical framework to approach a range of topics in Pacific prehistory, including, but not limited to, subsistence, territoriality, and monumentality. We further stress that the strength of this approach lies in the use of models as heuristic devices, and that HBE is not mutually exclusive fro…
Timing, magnitude and effects of late Holocene sea level drawdown on island habitability, Aitutaki, Cook Islands
Geologist Bill Dickinson argued that prior to late Holocene sea level fall, in many Pacific island settings low‐lying islands were awash, shallow nearshore environments were restricted and human settlement was constrained or sometimes impossible. Stable coastlines and islets of modern configuration only developed after the “cross‐over date”, when declining high‐tide levels fell below mid‐Holocene low‐tide levels, a regionally variable process. We…
Early Prehistoric Maize in Northern Highland Ecuador
The discovery of the fully developed Formative sites of Cotocallao (ca. 3750-2350 cal. B.P.) in the Quito Basin and La Chimba (ca. 2650-1700 cal. B.P.) in the northern highlands of Ecuador has raised questions about their cultural antecedents, which have not been resolved despite decades of archaeological work in the region. Paleoenvironmental coring investigations were conducted at Lake San Pablo in northern highland Ecuador to determine the dat…
Sourcing Rapa Nui mata'a from the collections of Bishop Museum using non-destructive pXRF
Modelling site formation dynamics: Geoarchaeological, chronometric and statistical approaches to a stratified rockshelter sequence, Polynesia
Investigating shellfish deposition and landscape history at the Natia Beach site, Fiji
Assessing the role of climate change and human predation on marine resources at the Fatu‐ma‐Futi site, Tutuila Island, American Samoa: An Agent Based Model
In the tropical Pacific, climate change has been implicated as a causal variable in the development of a variety of social processes, including resource scarcity, cultural diversification, changes in spatial organization, and conflict. Hypotheses concerning the effects of climatic variability on cultural change can be better evaluated once links between environmental processes and subsistence patterns are established. Here we present data on appr…
Assessing the role of climate change and human predation on marine resources at the Fatu‐ma‐Futi site, Tutuila Island, American Samoa: An Agent Based Model
In the tropical Pacific, climate change has been implicated as a causal variable in the development of a variety of social processes, including resource scarcity, cultural diversification, changes in spatial organization, and conflict. Hypotheses concerning the effects of climatic variability on cultural change can be better evaluated once links between environmental processes and subsistence patterns are established. Here we present data on appr…
Investigating shellfish deposition and landscape history at the Natia Beach site, Fiji
Modelling site formation dynamics: Geoarchaeological, chronometric and statistical approaches to a stratified rockshelter sequence, Polynesia
Early Prehistoric Maize in Northern Highland Ecuador
The discovery of the fully developed Formative sites of Cotocallao (ca. 3750-2350 cal. B.P.) in the Quito Basin and La Chimba (ca. 2650-1700 cal. B.P.) in the northern highlands of Ecuador has raised questions about their cultural antecedents, which have not been resolved despite decades of archaeological work in the region. Paleoenvironmental coring investigations were conducted at Lake San Pablo in northern highland Ecuador to determine the dat…
Human behavioural ecology and Pacific archaeology
The diverse islands of Oceania are ideal locations for the study of human ecology. Here, we argue that human behavioural ecology (HBE) provides a useful theoretical framework to approach a range of topics in Pacific prehistory, including, but not limited to, subsistence, territoriality, and monumentality. We further stress that the strength of this approach lies in the use of models as heuristic devices, and that HBE is not mutually exclusive fro…
Timing, magnitude and effects of late Holocene sea level drawdown on island habitability, Aitutaki, Cook Islands
Geologist Bill Dickinson argued that prior to late Holocene sea level fall, in many Pacific island settings low‐lying islands were awash, shallow nearshore environments were restricted and human settlement was constrained or sometimes impossible. Stable coastlines and islets of modern configuration only developed after the “cross‐over date”, when declining high‐tide levels fell below mid‐Holocene low‐tide levels, a regionally variable process. We…
Pre‐contact fish choice and foraging efficiency at Tula, American Sāmoa
Marine foraging is an under‐studied aspect of Sāmoan archaeology, although it clearly played a primary role in subsistence, with implications for settlement and demography. A pair of previous ichthyoarchaeological studies identified general stability in fish exploitation during ∼1500–2000 year sequences. We present a foraging‐theory‐based analysis of fish remains from Tula Village, Tutuila Island. Our results identify a decrease in foraging effic…
Sourcing Rapa Nui mata'a from the collections of Bishop Museum using non-destructive pXRF
The Sāmoa Archaeological Geospatial Database: Initial description and application to settlement pattern studies in the Sāmoan Islands
Jeff Clark's archaeological research on Eastern Tutuila Island provided the first regional scale settlement pattern data in American Samoa that could be meaningfully compared to earlier data drawn from projects on the archipelago's western islands, Savaiʻi and ʻUpolu. Building on Clark's work, in this paper we generate a spatial and temporal geodatabase incorporating 900 archaeological sites and 520 age estimates spanning the entirety of the Sāmo…
Archaeological and sedimentological data indicate Lapita settlement on a newly formed coastal plain: Tavua Island, Mamanuca Group, Fiji
The timing and choice of initial settlement location are examined on the small island of Tavua in Fiji’s Mamanuca Group. The mid- to late-Holocene sea-level retreat influenced the island’s coastal landforms through the acceleration of coastal progradation and the production of habitable land. Archaeological, sedimentological, and chronological data are integrated to better understand the island’s settlement and geomorphological history. These dat…
Investigating shellfish deposition and landscape history at the Natia Beach site, Fiji
Assessing the role of climate change and human predation on marine resources at the Fatu‐ma‐Futi site, Tutuila Island, American Samoa: An Agent Based Model
In the tropical Pacific, climate change has been implicated as a causal variable in the development of a variety of social processes, including resource scarcity, cultural diversification, changes in spatial organization, and conflict. Hypotheses concerning the effects of climatic variability on cultural change can be better evaluated once links between environmental processes and subsistence patterns are established. Here we present data on appr…
Modelling site formation dynamics: Geoarchaeological, chronometric and statistical approaches to a stratified rockshelter sequence, Polynesia
Sourcing Rapa Nui mata'a from the collections of Bishop Museum using non-destructive pXRF
Timing, magnitude and effects of late Holocene sea level drawdown on island habitability, Aitutaki, Cook Islands
Geologist Bill Dickinson argued that prior to late Holocene sea level fall, in many Pacific island settings low‐lying islands were awash, shallow nearshore environments were restricted and human settlement was constrained or sometimes impossible. Stable coastlines and islets of modern configuration only developed after the “cross‐over date”, when declining high‐tide levels fell below mid‐Holocene low‐tide levels, a regionally variable process. We…
Early Prehistoric Maize in Northern Highland Ecuador
The discovery of the fully developed Formative sites of Cotocallao (ca. 3750-2350 cal. B.P.) in the Quito Basin and La Chimba (ca. 2650-1700 cal. B.P.) in the northern highlands of Ecuador has raised questions about their cultural antecedents, which have not been resolved despite decades of archaeological work in the region. Paleoenvironmental coring investigations were conducted at Lake San Pablo in northern highland Ecuador to determine the dat…
Agent-based modelling, molluscan population dynamics, and archaeomalacology
Archaeological and sedimentological data indicate Lapita settlement on a newly formed coastal plain: Tavua Island, Mamanuca Group, Fiji
The timing and choice of initial settlement location are examined on the small island of Tavua in Fiji’s Mamanuca Group. The mid- to late-Holocene sea-level retreat influenced the island’s coastal landforms through the acceleration of coastal progradation and the production of habitable land. Archaeological, sedimentological, and chronological data are integrated to better understand the island’s settlement and geomorphological history. These dat…
Pre‐contact fish choice and foraging efficiency at Tula, American Sāmoa
Marine foraging is an under‐studied aspect of Sāmoan archaeology, although it clearly played a primary role in subsistence, with implications for settlement and demography. A pair of previous ichthyoarchaeological studies identified general stability in fish exploitation during ∼1500–2000 year sequences. We present a foraging‐theory‐based analysis of fish remains from Tula Village, Tutuila Island. Our results identify a decrease in foraging effic…
Human behavioural ecology and Pacific archaeology
The diverse islands of Oceania are ideal locations for the study of human ecology. Here, we argue that human behavioural ecology (HBE) provides a useful theoretical framework to approach a range of topics in Pacific prehistory, including, but not limited to, subsistence, territoriality, and monumentality. We further stress that the strength of this approach lies in the use of models as heuristic devices, and that HBE is not mutually exclusive fro…
East Polynesian Islands as Models of Cultural Divergence: The Case of Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti
The diverse island societies of East Polynesia are well-suited as models for comparative evolutionary analysis. Settled ca. 750 BP by a common ancestral population, colonists of the remote corners of the Pacific shared a pool of cultural traits that included commensal species, language, technology, and other cultural practices. Following colonization however, island populations diverged in language, subsistence practices, degree of territoriality…
The Sāmoa Archaeological Geospatial Database: Initial description and application to settlement pattern studies in the Sāmoan Islands
Jeff Clark's archaeological research on Eastern Tutuila Island provided the first regional scale settlement pattern data in American Samoa that could be meaningfully compared to earlier data drawn from projects on the archipelago's western islands, Savaiʻi and ʻUpolu. Building on Clark's work, in this paper we generate a spatial and temporal geodatabase incorporating 900 archaeological sites and 520 age estimates spanning the entirety of the Sāmo…
Archaeology (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (10 works) · Biology (9 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (7 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Geology (5 works) · Isotope Analysis in Ecology (5 works) · Paleontology (4 works) · Subsistence agriculture (4 works)