The archaeology of archipelagos: human ecological and behavioural dynamics in island systems

Journal article

This paper presents a framework for long-term human behavioural and ecological dynamics in archipelagos. The framework is built on four points. First, archipelagos are in flux. Processes like geological formation, climatic change, and insularisation have influenced not only plant and animal distributions, but also human water-crossing capacities, connectivity, and cognition. Second, humans are behaviourally plastic and can be adaptively flexible. Fluctuating archipelagos became intertwined with people’s plasticity as they made their livelihoodsin these spaces. Third, as humans peopled islands they transformed them, creating ‘cultured archipelagos’. Cultured archipelagos were not just humanly altered environments, but developmental systems built on ecological and technical knowledge, scaffolding future possibilities for island life and maritime activity. Fourth, cultured archipelagos evolved as rhizomatic networks. This means they emerged through simultaneous processes of divergence and connection. To illustrate the approach, these dynamics are explored through the archaeological record of New Guinea’s outlying islands. This shifts the focus of island archaeology away from insular spaces that exert structuring influences on humans, or humans that create insular identities in isolation, to evolving archipelagic ecologies formed by the activities of islands, biota, and humans. Beyond islands, archipelagic archaeology could help to understand spatial and temporal dynamics in other fragmented landscapes. 

Authors: Gaffney, D

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Journal: Current Anthropology
• Acceptance date: 2025-12-14
• EISSN: 1537-5382
• ISSN: 0011-3204
• Language: English
• Keywords: island archaeology; human evolution; colonisation; plasticity; developmental systems; Pacific; Southeast Asia