Aranui - Freighter to Paradise: Tahiti tours, tahiti cruise, and french polynesia cruise vacation

Lecturers
		Voyage Austral Islands : January 19 - January 27, 2007
	Mark Eddowes	Mark Eddowes is a graduate student in anthropology from the University of Auckland New Zealand, resident in the territory of French Polynesia since 1989. For 10 yeras he was an archaeologist for the C.P.S.H. (centre Polynesien des sciences humaines) at the mueum of Tahiti and her islands in Punaauia Tahiti. During that time he undertook research upon the island of Rimatara in the Australs surveying archaeological sites there. He recently published these results including an extensive analysis of the marae or ancient temples of the island and their relation to those of nearby Rurutu, Tubuai, Ra'ivaevae and the neighbouring Cook Islands. It is the first published work on the subject of these islands. On two successive occasions he undertook archaeolocial excavations at an important settlement site on the island of Tubuai. This dig was at a site called Atiahara. It was an ancient village occupied from around 1000 A.D. up until the arrival of the famous H.M.S. Bounty in 1789. The artefacts recovered from the lowest levels of the excavation in terms of fishooks, stone adzes, tattoo needles etc. related to those found at other key sites of first settlment elsewhere in Polynesia. Most notably the site of Hane (ua Huka) and Ha'atuatua (Nuku Hiva) in the Marquesas, and Temoe atoll in the Mangarevan group. Showing an early east Polynesian voyaging community settleing this vast area contemporaneously. Later materials revealed links with the eastern Cooks Islands. His work on the oral traditions of the region situate the Australs within their cultural hegemony with the Cook Islands formerly and notably the strong cultural affinities between Rimatara and Mangaia and Tubuai and theisland of Aitutaki. He presently has plans to deepen his work on the survey and mapping of marae on Tubuai and limmited excavation and restoration of them. He at present lives upon the island of Huahine and works on archaeological projects for the minister of culture periodically and lectures on archaeology and anthropology. He speaks both French and Tahitian.