Archaeobotanical investigations of an earth oven in Kiribati, Gilbert Islands

Abstract

This paper is an ethnobotanical study of a 400 year old earth oven discovered on Nikunau, in the southern Gilbert Islands. The anthropological analyses based on almost 2000 identified charcoal specimens show that only a few taxa were used for fuel, primarily monocotyledon endocarp which was waste from food production. In addition, a conventional non-parametric statistical test was evaluated for use as an indicator of similarity between samples. It appears that in an assemblage where the taxonomic range (monocotyledon to dicotyledon) is large, a rank order statistical test is inappropriate due to variation in fragmentation.