Talk:Marquesan Dog

Latest comment: 7 years ago by KAVEBEAR in topic "Prone"
Good articleMarquesan Dog has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
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May 7, 2017Good article nomineeListed
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Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 31, 2017.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that a stone relief (pictured), now accepted as an extinct Marquesan Dog, was claimed by Thor Heyerdahl to depict a llama to bolster his theory that Polynesia was settled from South America?
Current status: Good article


Other images edit

Opferkopf Manuiotaa (Sacrificial Head Manuiotaa), Ethnological Museum of Berlin

Marae Iipona, Puamau, Hivaoa, Marquesas-Inseln. 18. Jh. • Stein • Ethnologisches Museum, SMB • Slg. Karl von den Steinen 1899 • VI 15827
Meʻae Iipona, Puamau, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands. 18th century • stone • Ethnologisches Museum, SMB • Col. Karl von den Steinen, 1899 • VI 15827

Reference sources from Millerstrom's article edit

  • Anderson, Atholl (1981). "Pre-European Hunting Dogs in the South Island, New Zealand". New Zealand Journal of Archaeology. 3. Dunedin: New Zealand Archaeological Association: 15–20. OCLC 605733958.



Kellum-Ottino, M. 1971. Archéologie d'une Vallée des Iles Marquises, Evolution des Structures de l'Habitat à Hane, Ua Huka (Société des Océanistes 26). Paris: Musée de l'Homme.


Millerstrom 1985a Millerstrom 1985b Millerstrom 1986 Millerstrom 1990 Ottino 1992

Linton 1923

Linton, R. 1923. The Material Culture of the Marquesas Islands. (Memoirs of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum 8/5 ). Honolulu: B. P. Bishop Museum.

Linton 1925

Linton, R. 1925. Archaeology of the Marquesas Islands (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 23). Honolulu: B. P. Bishop Museum.

Suggs 1961

Suggs, R. C. 1961. Archaeology of Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 49(1), 1–205.
Suggs (1961, 60) concluded that the images were contemporary with the dune site.

Kirch 1986 Spriggs and Anderson 1993 Kirch and Ellison 1994

Kirch (1973, 29–38) believed that the dog was not a major food source in the Marquesas and that it became extinct sometime between AD 1600 and 1800.

Kirch, P. V. 1973. Prehistoric subsistence pattern in northern Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 8, 24–40.
Kirch, P. V. 1982. Advances in Polynesian prehistory: three decades in review. Advances in World Archaeology 1, 51–97.
Kirch, P. V. 1984. The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms (New Studies in Archaeology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kirch, P. V. 1986. Rethinking east Polynesian prehistory. Journal of the Polynesian Society 95, 9–40.
Kirch, P. V. 2000. On the Road of the Winds; An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirch, P. V. and Ellison, J. 1994. Paleoenvironmental evidence for human colonization of remote Oceanic islands. Antiquity 68, 310–21.
Kirch, P. V., and Hunt, T. L. ( eds). 1997. Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands; Prehistoric Environmental and Landscape Change. London: Yale University Press.

A gallery of pecked images, some representing dogs, was discovered under several inches of coquina in a nearby dry riverbed (south of Nhaa1, area A; see Suggs 1961, Plate 11A)

Sinoto and Kellum 1965; Sinoto 1966; Sinoto 1968; Yosihiko Sinoto (1969, 107; 1979, 119)

Sinoto, Y. H. 1966. A tentative prehistoric cultural sequence in the Northern Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Journal of the Polynesian Society 75, 287– 303. Sinoto, Y. H. 1968. Position of the Marquesas Islands in East Polynesian prehistory, pp. 111–8 in Yawata, I. and Sinoto, Y. H. (eds), Prehistoric Culture in Oceania. Honolulu: B. P. Bishop Museum Press.
Sinoto, Y. H. 1969. An archaeologically based assessment of the Marquesas as a dispersal center in East Polynesia, pp. 105–32 in Green, R. C. and Kelly, M. (eds), Studies in Oceanic Culture History (Pacific Anthropological Records 11). Honolulu: B. P. Bishop Museum. Sinoto, Y. H. 1979. The Marquesas, pp. 110–34 in Jennings, J. D. (ed.), The Prehistory of Polynesia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sinoto, Y. H. 1983. An analysis of Polynesian migrations based on the archaeological assessments. Journal de la Société des Océanistes 39, 57 –67.
Sinoto, Y. H. and Kellum, M. 1965. Preliminary report on excavation in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Mimeographed report to the National Science Foundation. Honolulu: B. P. Bishop Museum. Spriggs, M. and Anderson, A. 1993. Late colonization of East Polynesia. Antiquity 67, 200–17.

Pascal Sellier (2000), found dog burials

Sellier, P. 2000. Burial practices of ancient Marquesas Islanders: excavation at Manihina, Ua Huka Island. Paper presented at Pacific 2000, Marquesan History and Prehistory, Hawai'i Preparatory Academy, Kamuela, Hawai'i Island.


Rolett (1998); about dogs page 92; the data show evidence of occupation in the early periods of Marquesan prehistory as proposed by Sinoto (Rolett and Conte 1995).

Rolett, B. V. 1998. Hanamiai: Changing Subsistence and Ecology in the Prehistory of Tahuata (Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia) (Yale University Publications in Anthropology 84). New Haven, Conn.: Department of Anthropology, Yale University.
Rolett, B. V. and E. Conte. 1995. Renewed investigation of the Ha'atuatua Dune (Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands): a key site in Polynesian prehistory. Journal of the Polynesian Society 104, 195–228.


Terrell, J. (ed.). 1988. Von den Steinen's Marquesan Myths. Pacific Studies 14(4), 159–73.


In many respects the archeology of the Marquesan dog starts with the work of Karl von den Steinen [1928(II), 77–86]. Von den Steinen, a German physician with an interest in ethnography, worked in the islands in the 1880s. At me'ae I'ipona (also called Oipona), a large temple site with complex architecture and numerous megalitic stone statues in Puama'u, Hiva Oa ( Millerstrom 1985a; Millerstrom 1985b; Millerstrom 1986; Millerstrom 1990; Ottino 1992) he collected a megalithic sculptured stonehead with two quadrupeds each placed at each corner of the mouth. The stone sculpture is presently located in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. At the same site, situated on a cube formed base of another sculpture von den Steinen found two additional quadrupeds (Fig. 2). Von den Steinen's informant told him that the quadrupeds represented pigs, rats, or dogs. Since it was assumed that dogs did not existed in the islands prehistorically but were a European introduction, von den Steinen concluded that the images represented rats.

Archaeologist Ralph Linton of the Bayard Dominick Expedition, Honolulu, worked in the archipelago in 1920– 21 with E. S. Craighill Handy and his wife Willowdean Chatterson Handy (Linton 1923; Linton 1925). Linton concentrated on ceremonial sites. While he mapped and described some 170 structures of which seventy-two were tribal ceremonial sites (tohua) and fifty-eight shrines (me'ae), he observed several large petroglyphs boulders depicting anthropomorphs and zoomorphs. He did not, however, mention seeing dog images. Although Linton also recorded the sculptures at me'ae I'ipona, it appears that he failed to notice the quadrupeds situated on the Fig. 2. Dog petroglyph situated on the base of a statue as had already been noted by von den Steinen. Although von den Steinen worked in the islands some 30 years before Linton and the Handys', because of World War I, von den Steinen's data was not published until a few years after Linton's work. In fact, Linton (1925) felt that he found so few petroglyphs that he declined to speculate on the images' symbolic and ritual functions.

Pioneering stratigraphic excavation by Robert C. Suggs (1961), a member of the American Museum of Natural History Expedition to the archipelago in 1956 uncovered dog bones at Ha'atuatua Beach Dunes (Fig. 3). Ha'atuatua is located on the north coast of Nuku Hiva. Radiocarbon age determination placed the Ha'atuatua site (Nhaa 1) to c. 120 BC or what Suggs has coined the Settlement period (150 BC to AD 100). Although the early dates are contested (Kirch 1986; Spriggs and Anderson 1993; Kirch and Ellison 1994) the site represents, to some archaeologists, the earliest evidence of human colonization in East Polynesia. A gallery of pecked images, some representing dogs, was discovered under several inches of coquina in a nearby dry riverbed (south of Nhaa1, area A; see Suggs 1961, Plate 11A). Suggs (1961, 60) concluded that the images were contemporary with the dune site.

At the same time the Norwegian Expedition, organized and financed by Thor Heyerdahl, was engaged in archaeological research on Marquesas (Heyerdahl and Ferdon 1965). His team mapped and excavated me'ae I'ipona (Heyerdahl 1965, 123–50), the same temple site that von den Steinen had examined nearly 80 years earlier. In his interpretation of the site Heyerdahl relied mostly on information provided by von den Steinen and argued that the figures did not signify rats at all but represented llamas (see Fig. 2). This, of course, bolstered Heyerdahl's theory that people from South America migrated to East Polynesia prehistory, a theory that is rejected by most Oceanic archaeologists. Excavation at me'ae I'ipona yielded radiocarbon age determinations for the architecture that, perhaps also, provided relative dates for the stone sculptures. Heyerdahl (1965, 123–51) suggested that the sculptures were placed at me'ae I' ipona approximately AD 1400– 1500 (uncalibrated dates). Von den Steinen [ 1928(II), 84– 86] calculated the age of the site based on genealogical information, arguing that the temple site was constructed approximately AD 1700–1750.

These projects were followed by archaeological research in Hane Valley, Ua Huka (Sinoto and Kellum 1965; Sinoto 1966; Sinoto 1968). At the Hane dune site (MUH 1), Yosihiko Sinoto (1969, 107; 1979, 119) with the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, uncovered a drilled dog canine in Phase I (Initial settlement from AD 300–600), and one premolar and two dog burials in Layer V (Area B). Analysis on the Hane faunal assemblage by Patrick V. Kirch (1973) showed that the dog was not common in the Hane site. Based on the limited dog bones uncovered at the Hane site Kirch (1973, 29–38) believed that the dog was not a major food source in the Marquesas and that it became extinct sometime between AD 1600 and 1800.

Sinoto (1979; 1983) also worked at the Ha'atuatua dune site to see if excavation would yield early age dates similar to that which would support Suggs analysis. However, Sinoto's excavation yielded much later dates, thus he proposed that the archipelago was first settled approximately AD 300–600. Consistency, the results of both Suggs' and Sinoto's carbon analysis has since troubled archaeologists and has led to spirited debates (Kirch 1986; Spriggs and Anderson 1993; Kirch and Ellison 1994). To settle the debate, a multiyear archaeological research project was undertaken by University of Hawaii, Département Archéologie du Centre Polynésien des Sciences Humaines, and Université Française du Pacifique, Tahiti. None of the ten radiocarbon dates this project uncovered supported Suggs' hypotheses of early colonization, nor did the data show evidence of occupation in the early periods of Marquesan prehistory as proposed by Sinoto (Rolett and Conte 1995).

Pascal Sellier (2000), a French physical anthropologist that recently excavated at Manihina, a sand dune located in a valley west of Hane (Ua Huka), uncovered three dog skeletons among several human burials. One dog skeleton appeared to have been placed in a coffin. The site dates to the late prehistoric-early-historic period.

Finally, at Hanamiai, Tahuata, Rolett (1998) found dog bones in all the excavated levels from the time of settlement AD 1025–1300 (Hanamiai Phase I) to the early historic period AD 1800–1850 (Hanamiai Phase V). Some of the dog bones that were excavated by Rolett had cut marks which suggested that they were eaten, skinned or perhaps both. Rolett's (1998, 92) conclusion concurred with Kirch analysis that dog was never an important food source in prehistoric Marqueses and that they seemed to have almost disappeared, a least at Hanamiai and Hane, by the early historic period. Finally, at Hanamiai, Tahuata, Rolett ( 1998) found dog bones in all the excavated levels from the time of settlement.

"Prone" edit

"Prone position" in Note 1: nothing could be "toppled" from a prone position. Upright position? Please check the cted reference and correct.Wetman (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

It can if it has a base. See the third image after intro.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:25, 31 March 2017 (UTC)Reply