On building and fitting a spatio-temporal change-point model for settlement and growth at Bourewa, Fiji Islands

Understand

The Bourewa beach site on the Rove Peninsula of Viti Levu is the earliest known human settlement in the Fiji Islands.

• How did the settlement at Bourewa develop in space and time? We have radiocarbon dates on sixty specimens, found in association with evidence for human presence, taken from pits across the site.
• Owing to the lack of diagnostic stratigraphy, there is no direct archaeological evidence for distinct phases of occupation through the period of interest.
• We give a spatio-temporal analysis of settlement at Bourewa in which the deposition rate for dated specimens plays an important role.