The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Exchange in Precolonial and Colonial Roviana

Abstract

Using ethnohistorical, ethnographical, historical, and archaeological evidence, this article reconstructs the development of exchange systems in Roviana, Solomon Islands, and explores their longterm transformation. It suggests that a Roviana system of multiple coexisting standards of valuation of goods and services gained preeminence in precolonial times in the context of a regional exchange system and political expansion and explores this systems subsequent articulation with European economic forms. It traces the dynamics of this system and shows its importance in the consolidation of political stratification and sociopolitical differentiation. In this system, objects moved between spheres of exchange as gifts, commodities, and inalienable possessions depending on the social, economic, and political context in which they were exchanged and/or transferred, with each sphere specifying not only the objects exchanged but also the appropriate modes of exchange and a set of attendant social relationships. Explanatory priority is given to the development of multiple modes of exchange from an autochthonous entanglement of diverse regional polities long before significant contact with Europeans.

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