‘Pofatu‘ is a humanities and social sciences project involving a database of geochemical composition and contextual information. These data are used as an archaeological source to generate maps and reconstruct the movements of Pacific island populations. The methodology developed in the project will enable this form of work to be adapted to other geographical zones.

This project is led by Aymeric Hermann, a researcher at the TEMPS (‘Technology and Ethnology of Prehistoric Worlds’) joint research unit (UMR) – (CNRS/Université Panthéon-Sorbonne/Université Paris Nanterre), with the participation of Robert Forkel, an engineer at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.