Island Networks Communication, Kinship, and Classification Structures in Oceania

In their previous book, Exchange in Oceania, anthropologist Per Hage and mathematician Frank Harary demonstrated that models from graph theory, a branch of pure mathematics, provide the essential basis for analyzing the great variety of exchange systems in Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polynesian societies. In this new book the authors extend these models and apply them to the analysis of communication, kinship, and classification structures in the island societies of Oceania, presenting the relevant topics from graph theory in a form accessible to the nonmathematical reader. The research problems include the formation of island empires, the social basis of dialect groups, the emergence of trade and political centers, the evolution and devolution of social stratification, the transformations of marriage and descent systems, the historical development of kinship terminologies, and the reconstruction of protosocieties.

Contrary to common perception and belief, most island societies of the Pacific were not isolated, but were connected to other island societies by relations of kinship and marriage, trade and tribute, language and history. Using network models from graph theory, the authors analyse the formation of island empires, the social basis of dialect groups, the emergence of economic and political centres, the evolution and devolution of social stratification and the evolution of kinship terminologies, marriage systems and descent groups from common historical prototypes. The book is at once a unique and important contribution to Oceania studies, anthropology and social network analysis.

List of figures, tables, and maps; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Island networks and graphs; 2. Trees; 3. The minimum spanning tree problem; 4. Search trees I; 5. Search trees II; 6. Centrality; 7. Dominating sets; 8. Digraphs; 9. Conclusion; References; Index.