ABSTRACT

A postulated “A.D. 1000 Event” in Pacific Oceania referred to a region-wide formalization of social organization and fixing of land-use patterns into large-scale and long-lasting physical constructions within identifiable territories. Archaeological records after A.D. 1000 have shown impressive investment in stonework constructions, monuments, village organization structure, at-house burial traditions, and other indicators of formally linking lineages with specifically defined units of land. This timing corresponded with an extensive population dispersal from West to East Polynesia, initiating the final steps in a fully inhabited sea of islands as would be known ethnohistorically. In a long-term chronological view, several factors had contributed convergently to the apparent A.D. 1000 Event, with subsequent long-lasting effects in cross-regional cultural and ecological history.