ISLAND DIGS: The remains of rats on Polynesian islands such as Agakauitai, French Polynesia (above), provide zooarchaeologists with a record of environmental changes, and by proxy, human activity, in the region. One recent study excavated the animals’ bones (below) to track those changes over more than 1,000 years.
JILLIAN A SWIFT
When working on archaeological digs in the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia, zooarchaeologist Jillian Swift has her attention trained on the ground. Nevertheless, she’s often struck by a strange lack of activity overhead: “It’s kind of eerie, where there’s just not a single bird in the sky.”
This avian silence fell over some of the places where Swift works—such as several small islands clustered near Mangareva, the central island of the Gambiers—centuries ago, after humans and their attendant rats arrived, often making quick meals of local birds’ eggs and young. But now, the bones of these wayfaring rodents and ...
