Title Information
Title
The Logics of Island Life: The Archaeology of Movement, Distance, and Settlement in the Neolithic Aegean and Ceramic Age Lesser Antilles
Name: Personal
Name Part
Leppard, Thomas P
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2013
Physical Description
Extent
20, 352 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note
Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2013)
Name: Personal
Name Part
Cherry, John
Role
Role Term: Text
Director
Name: Personal
Name Part
van Dommelen, Peter
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Houston, Stephen
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Alcock, Susan
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Fitzpatrick, Scott
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Archaeology and the Ancient World
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
This dissertation examines how colonizing populations of prehistoric food-producing communities adapted to small-island contexts. Taking the Neolithic colonization of the Cyclades (5,000 – 3,200 BC) and the colonization of the Ceramic Age Lesser Antilles (500 BC – AD 500) as case studies, this dissertation explores the diachronic social and spatial organization of human populations in both archipelagoes through the lenses of settlement ecology, behavioral ecology, and island biogeography. A central question is whether the combination of common technologies of food production and movement, combined with the inherent ecological challenges of small islands, made certain logics of organization self-selecting; or, whether processes of insular adaptation in both case studies were entirely context-specific. This and subsidiary questions are considered through bringing to bear on extant data various modes of geospatial analysis and modeling, including density and Proximal Point analysis, gravity and network modeling, and resource-catchment analysis. Conclusions suggest that, despite evident differences, the unique demographic pressures exerted by the Neolithic mode of subsistence in small islands encouraged the adoption of similar strategies of coping and adaptation in both archipelagoes; specifically, expansion of and diversification in settlement systems, with accompanying developments in intra- and inter-site ranking, and social hierarchies.
Subject
Topic
Island archaeology; Caribbean; Mediterranean; adaptation; behavioral ecology
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20131219
Language
Language Term: Code (ISO639-2B)
eng
Language Term: Text
English
Identifier: DOI
10.7301/Z06H4FRV
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations