Lapita culture
The Lapita culture is the name given to a
Etymology
The term 'Lapita' was coined by archaeologists after mishearing a word in the local
The term Lapita is now used to refer to the collection of theories regarding the origin and features of the ancestors of the people that speak the Oceanic languages. It also refers to the material culture found in excavations, especially pottery, related to these ancestral communities.[2]: 21
Artifact dating
'Classic' Lapita pottery was produced between 1,600 and 1,200 BCE on the Bismarck Archipelago.[5] Artifacts exhibiting Lapita designs and techniques from a period later than 1,200 BCE have been found in the Solomon Islands,[10] Vanuatu and New Caledonia.[5][11] Lapita pottery styles from around 1,000 BCE have been found in Fiji and Western Polynesia.[5]
In Western Polynesia, Lapita pottery became less decorative[4] and progressively simpler over time. It seems to have stopped being produced altogether in Samoa by about 2,800 years ago, and in Tonga by about 2,000 years ago.[5]
Material culture
Pottery whose detailed decorative designs suggest Lapita influence was made from a variety of materials, depending on what was available, and their crafters used a variety of techniques, depending on the tools they had.[12] But, typically, the pottery consisted of low-fired earthenware, tempered with shells or sand, and decorated using a toothed (“dentate”) stamp.[4] It has been theorized[13] that these decorations may have been transferred from less hardy material, such as bark cloth (“tapa”) or mats, or from tattoos, onto the pottery – or transferred from the pottery onto those materials. Other important parts of the Lapita repertoire were: undecorated ("plain-ware") pottery, including beakers, cooking pots, and bowls; shell artifacts; ground-stone adzes; and flaked-stone tools made of obsidian, chert, or other available kinds of rock.[14][4]
Economy
The Lapita kept pigs, dogs, and chickens. Horticulture was based on
Burial customs
In 2003, at the
Settlements
Lapita culture villages on islands in the area of Remote Oceania tended not to be located inland, but instead on the beach, or on small offshore islets. These locations may have been chosen because inland areas – for example in New Guinea – were already settled by other peoples. Or they may have been chosen in order to avoid areas inhabited by mosquitoes carrying malaria, against which Lapita people likely had no immune defence. Some of their houses were built on stilts over large lagoons. In New Britain, however, there were inland settlements; they were located near obsidian sources. And on the islands at the eastern end of the archipelago, all settlements were located inland rather than on the beaches – sometimes fairly far inland.
Distribution
The Lapita complex incompasses a very large geographic region from Mussay to Samoa.[2]: 19 Lapita pottery has been found in Near Oceania as well as Remote Oceania, as far west as the Bismarck Archipelago, as far east as Samoa, and as far south as New Caledonia.[4][5] Excavation at a site in the village of Mulifanua in Samoa uncovered two adzes that strongly indicate Lapita influence. Carbon dating of material found with the adzes suggests there was a Lapita settlement at this site in roughly 1000 BCE.[17] Radio carbon dating of sites in New Caledonia suggest there were Lapita settlements there as early as 1,110 ago.[18] The dates and locations of more northerly Lapita-influenced settlements are still largely up for debate.[4]
The Lapita complex has been divided into three geographical subregions or provincesː the Far Western Lapita, the Western Lapita, and the Eastern Lapita.[19] Within the Far Western Lapita is the New Britain or Bismarck archipelago, including the area discovered by Otto Meyer in 1909. The Western Lapita includes the artifacts found within the Solomon Islands to New Caledonia. The Eastern Lapita is attributed to the Fiji, Tonga and Samoa region.[2]: 19 Discoveries of unique patterns within the Eastern Lapita region suggest a subdivision of Early and Late Eastern Lapita variations.[20]
Language
Linguists and other researchers theorize that the people of the Lapita cultural complex spoke Proto-Oceanic, which is a branch of the Austronesian language family widely distributed in Southeast Asia today.[21][22] However, the particular language or languages spoken by the Lapita is unknown. The languages spoken in the region today derive from a number of different ancient languages, and material culture uncovered by archaeology does not generally provide clues to the language spoken by the makers of the artifacts.[21] Furthermore, certain Lapita groups are likely to have differences in speech and appearance from their relatives in different archipelagos or islands.[2]: 18
Origin
The Lapita complex is part of the eastern migration branch of the
In 2011, Peter Bellwood proposed that the initial movement of Malayo-Polynesian speakers into Oceania was from the northern Philippines eastward into the Mariana Islands, then southward into the Bismarcks. An older proposal was that Lapita settlers first arrived in Melanesia via eastern Indonesia. Bellwood’s proposal included the possibility that both migration patterns happened, with different migrants taking different routes.[26] Bellwood’s proposal is supported by the pottery evidence: Lapita pottery is more similar to pottery recovered from the Philippines (at the Nagsabaran archaeological site on Luzon Island) than it is to pottery discovered anywhere else. Other evidence suggests that the Luzon area may have been the original homeland of the stamped pottery tradition that is carried forward in Lapita culture.[27]
Archaeological evidence also broadly supports the theory that the people of the Lapita culture are of Austronesian origin. On the Bismarck Archipelago, around 3,500 years ago, the Lapita complex appears suddenly, as a fully-developed archaeological horizon with associated highly developed technological assemblages. No evidence has been found on the archipelago of settlements in earlier developmental stages. This suggests that the Lapita culture was brought in by a migrating population, and did not – as had been proposed in the 1980s and 1990s by scholars like Jim Allen and J. Peter White – evolve locally.
There is evidence that western Melanesia was continuously occupied by indigenous Papuans beginning between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago. That evidence includes recovered artifacts. But those remnants of the older material culture are far less diverse than the relics dating from after the Lapita horizon. The older material culture appears to have contributed only a few elements to the later Lapita material culture: some crops and some tools.[24][28]
The vast majority of the Lapita material-culture elements are clearly Southeast Asian in origin. These include pottery, crops,
The orthodox view, advocated by
In 2016,
Recent DNA studies show that the Lapita people and modern Polynesians have a common ancestry with the Atayal people of Taiwan and the Kankanaey people of the northern Philippines.[32]
Discovery
The first recorded discovery of Lapita materials was by Otto Meyer, a Sacred Heart missionary working on Watom Island in 1909.[33] Meyer discovered potsherds after a tropical storm hit the island and exposed the artifacts. The decorated sherds were sent by Meyer to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. In 1920 anthropologist William C. McKern unearthed over 1500 potsherds in the island of Tongatapu as part of a widespread expedition,[34] most with stamped motifs. McKern wasn't aware of Meyer's discoveries and assumed the sherds were prehistoric Fijian ceramics.[2]: 6 The connection between Meyer's sherds and those excavated by McKern was made in 1940 with the discovery of pottery on the Ile des Pins.
In the 1950s Edward Winslow Gifford, who assisted McKern in 1920, led expeditions that eventually centered on the beach of the Koné Peninsula from where the Lapita term was coined. Gifford used the recently invented carbon dating on his excavated charcoal, dating the artifacts between 2,800 and 2,450 years bp. Gifford later demonstrated the connection between the evidence from previous discoveries, including Merye's Watom islands sherds and McKern's Bayard Dominick expedition. Gifford also proved a relationship between his Lapita artifacts and those discovered by Pieter Vincent van Stein Callenfels along the Karama River in Sulawesi.[2]: 8 The time scale of the Lapita model between these discoveries and additional excavations were proven in the 1960s by Jack Golson, predating the Melanesian cultures and other Western Polynesian cultures.[33] Some of the notable archeological locations include the Lolokoka site in Niuatoputapu and within the Eastern Lapita, the Nenumbo site in the Reef Islands which includes the expansion to the Solomon Islands, and the Talepakemalai in Massau that exemplifies the earliest Lapita group within the Bismarck archipelago.
Lapita in Polynesia
This section possibly contains synthesis of material which does not verifiably mention or relate to the main topic. (November 2008) |
As the archaeological record improved in the 1980s and 1990s, the Lapita people were found to be the original settlers in parts of Melanesia and Western Polynesia.[24] Many scientists believe Lapita pottery in Melanesia to be proof that Polynesian ancestors passed through this area on their way into the central Pacific. The earliest archaeological site in Polynesia is in Tonga.[35]
Other early Lapita discovery sites dating back to 900 BCE are also found in Tonga and contain the typical pottery and other archaeological "kit" of Lapita sites in Fiji and eastern Melanesia of about that time and immediately before.[36][37]
Anita Smith compares the Polynesian Lapita period with the later Polynesian Plainware ceramic period in Polynesia:
"There do not appear to be new or different kinds of evidence associated with plain-ware ceramics (& lapita), only the disappearance of a minor component of material culture and faunal assemblages is apparent. There is continuity in most aspects of the archaeological record that appears to mimic post Lapita sequences of Fiji and island Melanesia (Mangaasi and Naviti pottery).”[37]
Plainware pottery is found on many Western Polynesian islands and marks a transitional period between when only Lapita pottery was found and a later period before the settlement of Eastern Polynesia when the Western Polynesians of the time had given up pottery production altogether. Archaeological evidence indicates that plainware pottery ceases abruptly in Samoa around 1 CE.
According to Smith:
"Ceramics were not manufactured by Polynesian societies at any time in East Polynesian prehistory".[37]
Matthew Spriggs stated: "The possibility of cultural continuity between Lapita Potters and Melanesians has not been given the consideration it deserves. In most sites there was an overlap of styles with no stratigraphic separation discernible. Continuity is found in pottery temper, importation of obsidian and in non-ceramic artefacts".[38]
See also
- Teouma – a major archaeological site in Vanuatu
- Archaeology in Samoa
- Early history of Tonga
References
- JSTOR 40387802.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Kirch, Patrick Vinton (1997). The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World. Oxford: Blackwell.
- ^ a b Blust, R. (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative linguistics". In E. Zeitoun and P. J.-K. Li. (ed.). Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Symposium Series of the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica..
- ^ JSTOR j.ctvtxw3gm.7.
- ^ JSTOR j.ctt2jbjx1.9. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ Pietrusewsky, Michael (2006). "Initial Settlement of remote Oceania: the evidence from physical anthropology". In Simanjuntak, T.; Pojoh, I.H.E.; Hisyam, M. (eds.). Austronesian Disapora and the Ethnogenesis of People in Indonesian Archipelago. Proceedings of the International Symposium. Jakarta: LIPI Press. pp. 320–347.
- ^ ISBN 9780816071098.
- ^ Mortaigne, Véronique (28 December 2010). "Lapita: Oceanic Ancestors – review". Guardian UK. Originally appeared in Le Monde. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
- ISBN 9780975122907.
- hdl:2292/997.
- ISBN 978-1-76046-330-4
- ProQuest 305336522.
- ISBN 978-0-520-27330-6.
- ^ "Lapita Culture". Encyclopædia Britannica. 26 February 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992507-0.
- ^ S2CID 43533664.
- ^ Green, Roger C.; Leach, Helen M. (1989). "New Information for the Ferry Berth Site, Mulifanua, Western Samoa". Journal of the Polynesian Society. 98 (3). Retrieved 1 November 2009.
- JSTOR 40386322.
- S2CID 162396781.
- ^ Green, R C (1975). "Lapita pottery and a lower sea level in Western Samoa". Pacific Science. 29 (4): 309–315.
- ^
- JSTOR 25735104
- ^ Jakobsen, Rasmus Kragh (17 April 2017). "Fossil DNA identifies the first seafarers in the Pacific Ocean". sciencenordic.com (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 24 October 2021.
- ^ a b c d Pawley, Andrew (2007). "The origins of Early Lapita culture: the testimony of historical linguistics". Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement (PDF). Terra Australis. ANU E Press. pp. 17–49.
- ISBN 978-0470016176.
- ^ hdl:1885/58842.
- ^ S2CID 128641903.
- ^ JSTOR 1006621.
- ^ Greenhill, S. J. & Gray, R.D. (2005).Testing Population Dispersal Hypotheses: Pacific Settlement, Phylogenetic Trees, and Austronesian Languages. In: The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: Phylogenetic Approaches. Editors: R. Mace, C. Holden, & S. Shennan. Publisher: UCL Press.[1] Archived 28 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Origins of Vanuatu and Tonga's first people revealed". 4 October 2016.
- PMID 33443177.
- ^ Gibbons, Ann (3 October 2016). "'Game-changing' study suggests first Polynesians voyaged all the way from East Asia". Science. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
- ^ ISSN 1469-9605.
- Te Rangi Hiroa, (Peter Buck), ed. (1945). "The Bayard Dominick Expeditions". An Introduction to Polynesian Anthropology. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bernice P. Bishop Museum. p. 45. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
- ISSN 0883-6353.
- ^ Burley, David V.; Barton, Andrew; Dickinson, William R.; Connaughton, Sean P.; Taché, Karine (2010). "Nukuleka as a Founder Colony for West Polynesian Settlement: New Insights from Recent Excavations". Journal of Pacific Archaeology. 1 (2): 128–144.
- ^ ISSN 0725-9018.
- ^ Matthew Spriggs, The Lapita Cultural Complex, 1985.
Sources
- Allen, J. (1984). "In Search of the Lapita Homeland: Reconstructing the Prehistory of the Bismarck Archipelago". Journal of Pacific History. 19 (4): 186–187. .
- Bellwood, P. (1978). Man's conquest of the Pacific. London: Collins.
- Chino, K. (2002). "Lapita Pottery – Ties in the South Pacific". Wave of Pacifika. 8.[2]
- Clark, G.; Anderson, Atholl; Vunidilo, T. (June 2000). The archaeology of Lapita dispersal in Oceania: papers from the 4th Lapita conference. Canberra: Pandanus Books. pp. 15–23.
- Noury, A. (2005). Le reflet de l'ame Lapita. Paris: Noury. ISBN 978-2-9524455-0-4.
- Noury, Arnaud; Galipaud J.-C. (2011). Les Lapita, nomades du Pacifique (french). France: IRD Editions.
- Noury, Arnaud (2012). Grammaire des décors lapita (french). France: Andromaque Editions.
- Noury, Arnaud (2013). Le Lapita : a l'origine des sociétés d'Oceanie (french). France: Lulu eds.
- Felgate, Matthew (2003) Reading Lapita in near Oceania : intertidal and shallow-water pottery scatters, Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia, Solomon Islands. University of Auckland PhD Thesis
External links
- Lapita cultural complex – brief description with picture of pottery (Central Queensland University School of Humanities)
- Extinctions connected with the spread of Lapita (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
- Lapita cultural complex, Lapita designs, texts about Lapita, LapitaDraw ("software to aid in studying archaeological ceramic artefacts") (Archéologie et Informatique, in French)
- 'Heads found in pots in Vanuatu dig', ANU media release, 14 July 2005, on discovery of Lapita skulls following 2004 find of headless Lapita skeletons
- Over 1000 Lapita photographs from the University of Auckland Anthropology Photographic Archive database. Search for "lapita"