Micronesia's Breadfruit Revolution and the evolution of a Culture Area

Abstract

Micronesia was initially settled from at least three quite separate points of origin and comprises multiple cultural and linguistic stocks. It nevertheless manifests a striking uniformity in its sociopolitical organization. I argue that these shared aspects of Micronesian societies diffused out of the Eastern Caroline Islands as a consequence of a prehistoric sociocultural efflorescence driven at least in part by the hybridization of two entirelydifferent breadfruit species. The characteristic form of Micronesia's dispersed conical clans was spread throughout the entire region, carriedalongwiththe economic successes conferred by productive new breadfruit varieties. Botanical, linguistic, archaeological and ethnological data are marshaled to substantiate this argument.Although Micronesia constitutes a coherent geographic region, it is sometimes dismissed as having little or no validity as an ethnological concept. Archaeological and linguistic evidence make it clear that the eastern and western reaches of the area were initially settled by different peoples moving out of distinctly different homelands, probably at different times. It is primarily because of these disparate origins, as compared, say, to the relative homogeneity of the Polynesians, that the existence of a valid Micronesian culture area is denied, although other sociocultural differences have also been cited (

Investigating the Global Dispersal of Chickens in Prehistory Using Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Signatures

“…[52]. While more research and a larger cohort of samples is necessary to investigate the temporal division observed in the chicken DNA signatures, this is not the first paper to highlight the importance of Micronesia in the dispersal of plants and animals within Oceania [53]–[55].…”

Dispersal, Isolation, and Interaction in the Islands of Polynesia: A Critical Review of Archaeological and Genetic Evidence

“…As Kirch [50] has pointed out, we cannot maintain a Wave of Advance model for the colonization of Fiji and Western Polynesia. We also note that in Micronesia, the 'breadfruit revolution' hypothesis [51] adds another layer of complexity, explaining common traits seen across the region by a boom in population in the Eastern Caroline Islands following the invention of hybrid tree crops; in effect, an e pluribus unum (one out of many) or multi-phyletic origins for Micronesian cultures.…”

Roasting breadfruit in the Pacific: A combined plant macroremain and phytolith analysis from Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia

“…Breadfruit plays an integral role in Pohnpeian subsistence systems (Hunter‐Anderson ; Lawrence ; Petersen ; Ragone ; Ragone and Raynor ). Originally domesticated in Island South‐East Asia, breadfruit is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae.…”