In the first three chapters of this book I introduced the motifs of fusion and fluidity that have helped in the understanding and contextualization of the long-term human history of the tropical north-west Pacific. Emerging through the chapters has been a third motif, that of flux. This last motif is strongly linked to those of fusion and fluidity, and all three together highlight similarity and difference through time. In this chapter, although they can only be artificially separated, I will assess aspects of the region's history under the heading of each of them. In conclusion, I will draw these motifs back together and consider the future for the archaeological past in the region.

Fusion

In his 1832 publication, at a time when the region was still little known in the European literature, Dumont d'Urville in defining ‘Micronesia’ mentioned the likelihood of ‘fusion’ between the ‘races’ of Micronesia and Melanesia. Further, he proposed that the original people who inhabited the islands of the tropical north-west Pacific were derived from populations in the Philippines who had already ‘fused’ with Japanese or Chinese people who had landed there. Thus, the notion of fusion in regard to the region discussed in this volume is by no means a new concept. The question then might be asked as to why I have reintroduced it here.