From test pits to big-scale archaeology in New Caledonia, southern Melanesia

Following on from pioneering projects (Allen and Gosden 1991; Garanger 1972; Green and Cresswell 1976), Melanesian archaeology has, during the last three decades, seen massive developments. In every archipelago, a number of ambitious research programs were initiated in the 1990s (e. g. Bedford et al. 1999; Clark and Anderson 2009; Sand 1996; Sheppard et al. 2000; Summerhayes 2000) and carried on in the following decades, allowing us to broaden, sometimes exponentially, our knowledge of the long past of this part of Oceania. Sadly, in a period characterised by important economic development in the region with the construction of numerous international