Re: Lapita & continuity in the archaeological record.....

From: Qiwi (marym_at_pl.net)
Date: 08/30/04 

Date: 30 Aug 2004 02:25:10 -0700

benlizross <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<41327CE3.24A2@ihug.co.nz>...
>
> The immediately following passage from Kirch may also be of interest:
>
> In the Marquesas, the radiocarbon chronology is almost hopelessly
> confused, with early dates of between about 200 BC and AD
> 300...contradicted by later age determinations, sometimes from the same
> stratigraphic contexts. At the key sand dune site of Hane, suites of
> dates by two different laboratories yielded completely contradictory
> sequences! (Half a dozen references here, most recently to work by
> Rolett).
>
> Ross Clark

This is absolute crap....
and as usual it is P.V.Kirch who is hopelessly confused...
If he is willing to put forward a date of 2,300 BP from one site on a
coral atoll in the Northern Cooks why would he question the dates from
the Marquesas???
The Marquesas are unusual amongst equatorial Pacific islands in that
they dont have fringing reefs...
Being in the direct path of the cold currents coming off the coast of
South America, coral growth is restricted, and sandy beachs are often
replaced by craggy cliffs falling directly into the sea.
As a result rock shelters were widely used by the early Marquesans and
these rockshelters provide archaeologists with a deeply stratified and
undisturbed record...
The really amusing part is that it was Kirch himself who in 1984
proposed a first settlement date of 400 b.c. for the Marquesas...

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