Landscapes have been fundamental to the human experience world-wide and throughout time, yet how did we as human beings evolve or co-evolve with our landscapes?  By answering this question, we can understand our place in the complex, ever-changing world that we inhabit.  

This book guides readers on a journey through the concurrent processes of change in an integrated natural-cultural history of a landscape.  While outlining the general principles for global application, a richly illustrated case is offered through the Mariana Islands in the northwest tropical Pacific and furthermore situated in a larger Asia-Pacific context for a full comprehension of landscape evolution at variable scales.  The author examines what happened during the first time when human beings encountered the world’s Remote Oceanic environment in the Mariana Islands about 3500 years ago, followed by a continuous sequence of changing sea level, climate, water resources, forest composition, human population growth, and social dynamics.  This book provides a high-resolution and long-term view of the complexities of landscape evolution that affect all of us today.

Mike T. Carson (Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Hawaii, 2002) investigates archaeological and palaeo-landscapes throughout the Asia-Pacific region.  He currently is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center (MARC), University of Guam, and he is co-editor of Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific, published by University of Hawaii Press.