The Polynesian World

Westerners from Captain Cook to Thor Heyerdahl have speculated on how the myriad of islands strewn across the Pacific came to be settled by a single people with a Stone Age culture.  In this course we will examine the physical and cultural geography of that vast portion of our globe bounded by Hawaii in the north, Easter Island in the east, and New Zealand in the southwest, focusing on the personality of the different islands and their inhabitants and analyzing the varying environmental challenges which these people encountered during their widespread diffusion.  Although a lecture format will be utilized, group discussion and individual problem solving will be encouraged.  No comprehensive text exists for this course, but a list of optional readings will be provided for those wishing to pursue special interests.

Class is limited to 20 members.

DR. VINCENT H. MALMSTRÖM is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Dartmouth College where he taught for over twenty years.  He studied at the Universities of Michigan, Texas, and Oslo (Norway) and as a result of his research interest in the origins of early civilizations, his travels have taken him throughout Europe and Latin America and from the Orient and Central Asia to the Middle East and Polynesia.  The author of numerous books and journal articles, his most recent volume, Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon, explores the origins of the Maya calendar at the beginnings of civilization in the New World.