Reconstructing Ancestral Oceanic Society

Abstract

An analysis combining historical linguistic, ethnological, and cross-cultural data can be used to reconstruct the general features of Ancestral Oceanic social organization, including descent, residence, stratification, and marriage alliance. The motivation for this analysis derives in part from two conclusions of Levi-Strauss in The Elementary Structures of Kinship: (1) Island (Oceanic-speaking) Melanesia is much less bilateral than commonly thought; and (2) Island Melanesia represents a continuation of Austronesian systems of generalized exchange. As a test of the proposed reconstruction, it is compared with the social organization of the Island Melanesian community Green and Pawley used as an ethnographic guideline in their recent historical linguistic and archaeological study of early Oceanic house architecture and settlement patterns. The results of this analysis have important implications for previous and current hypotheses regarding Ancestral Oceanic Society. KEYWORDS: Oceanic ethnology, Ancestral Oceanic Society, Oceanic kinship and social stratification, culture history, and historical linguistics.