Archeogeography and pre-contact regionalization processes in Northern Grande Terre (New Caledonia)

New-Caledonian archaeology mainly started to focus on the last millennium of the pre-European chronology with the creation of the Archaeology Department of New Caledonia, in the early 1990s. The archaeological approach which has been developed throughout this last 20 years has aimed for a diversification of the questions addressed, specifically through the investigation of traditional Kanak settlement sites. Building on these studies, spatial analyses and comparisons of archaeological and ethnographical data were realised in order to define the territorial system and spatial occupation patterns of pre-contacts Kanak societies in this region of New Caledonia. This article synthesizes the main results of these studies.