On the Road of the Winds

Revised and Expanded New Edition of On the Road of the Winds Published by University of California Press

I'm pleased to announce that the University of California Press has just published the completely revised and expanded new edition of my book On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. For this new edition, I thoroughly reviewed and integrated the research and findings reported by archaeologists of the Pacific in literally hundreds of articles, books, and monographs over the past two decades since the first edition was published. Some of the new findings discussed in the new edition include:

? The discovery of new Lapita sites that have extended our knowledge of the geographic range of Lapita (into the southern coast of New Guinea, for example) as well as the nature of the Lapita culture itself (such as the use of ceramic vessels for burials at the Teouma cemetery site in Vanuatu).

? A plethora of new genetic data from both mtDNA and Y-chromosome analyses of Pacific islander populations have illuminated the biological complexities of early human migrations into the region.

? Extensive fieldwork on the enigmatic terraced landscapes of Palau has elucidated the chronology and function of these massive earthworks.

? The development of high-precision Uranium/Thorium dating of coral artifacts has pinned down the timing of initial Polynesian settlement as well as revealed the chronologies for temple building in Tahiti and Hawai'i.

? The previous debate about "long" versus "short" chronologies for the expansion of Polynesians into the central and eastern Pacific has been resolved, including the timing of human settlement on Easter Island and in Hawai'i.

? There is new evidence for contact between Polynesia and the Americas.

? New theoretical work has placed the late pre-contact Hawaiian and Tongan societies among a handful of "archaic states" that arose in various parts of the world.

? The exciting integration of research in island ecology with archaeology has helped to advance the new discipline of "human ecodynamics," in which the Pacific islands as "model systems" played a key role.

On the Road of the Winds is available from the University of California Press, or from Amazon books, or through your independent booksellers.