Lapita is the common name of an ancient
Pacific Ocean archaeological culture which is believed by many archaeologists to be the common ancestor of several cultures in
Polynesia,
Micronesia, and some areas of
Melanesia. The archaeological culture and its characteristic pottery are named after the
type site at which it was first found, Lapita, which is located on the Pacific island of
New Caledonia.
Dating
Classic Lapita pottery was produced between
1350 and
750 BC in the
Bismarck Archipelago. A late variety might have been produced there up to
250 BC. Local styles of Lapita pottery are found in
Vanuatu and
New Caledonia. Pottery persisted in
Fiji, whereas it disappeared completely in other areas of
Melanesia and in
Siassi.
In Western Polynesia, Lapita pottery is found from 800 BC onwards in the Fiji-Samoa-Tonga area. From Tonga and Samoa, Polynesian culture spread to Eastern Polynesia areas including the Marquesas and the Society Islands, and then later to Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. However, pottery making did not persist in most of Polynesia, mainly due to the lack of suitable clay on small islands.
Material culture
The low-fired earthenware pottery, often tempered with shell or sand, is typically decorated with a dentate (toothed) stamp. It has been theorised that these decorations may have been transferred to or from less hardy mediums such as
tapa (bark cloth), mats or tattoos. Undecorated "plainware" pottery is an important part of the Lapita cultural complex, which also includes ground-stone
adzes and shell
artefacts, and flaked-stone tools of obsidian, chert and other available rock.
Economy
Domesticates consisted of
pigs,
dogs and
chickens.
Horticulture was based on
root crops and
tree crops, most importantly
taro and
yam,
coconuts,
bananas and varieties of
breadfruit. This was supplemented by
fishing and
mollusc gathering.
Long-distance trade of
obsidian,
adzes and favourable adze source rock and shells was practiced.
Burial customs
Excavation of a large cemetery at
Teouma on
Efate Island in Vanuatu discovered in 2003, found 36 bodies in 25 graves, as well as burial jars. All skeletons were headless with the skulls removed after original burial and replaced with rings made from cone shell. The heads were reburied. One burial of an elderly man had three skulls lined up on his chest. One burial jar featured four birds looking into the jar. Carbon dating of the shells placed this cemetery at about 1000 B.C.
Settlements
In the west, villages were located on small offshore islands or the beaches of larger islands. This may have been to avoid areas already settled in coastal New Guinea, or malaria-carrying mosquitoes for which Lapita people had no immune defence. Some houses were built on stilts over larger lagoons. In
New Britain, settlements are found inland as well, near the obsidian sources. In the eastern archipelago, all settlements are located on land, sometimes some distance inland.
Distribution
Lapita pottery is known from the Bismarck archipelago to Samoa and Tonga. Currently, the most eastern Lapita site is
Mulifanua in Samoa where 4,288 pottery sherds and two Lapita type adzes have been recovered. The site has a true age of circa 3,000 BP based on
14C dating on a shell. The domesticates spread into further Oceania as well. Humans, their domesticates, and species that were introduced involuntarily (perhaps as the
Polynesian Rat was) led to extinctions of
endemic species on many islands, especially of
flightless birds.
Language
The 'Lapita people' are supposed to have spoken
proto-Oceanic, a precursor of the Oceanic branch of
Austronesian. It is, however, difficult to link non-literate
material culture to languages, and it cannot be verified by independent sources.
Origin
An ultimate
Southeast Asian origin of the Lapita complex is assumed by most scholars, perhaps originating from the
Austronesians in Taiwan or southern China some 5,000-6,000 years ago. This Neolithic dispersal was driven by a rapid population growth in east and southeast
Asia (
Formosa), and has often been called 'the express-train to Polynesia'. Burial pottery similar to "red slip" pottery of Taiwan, as well as detailed linguistic evidence seems to lend support to this theory.
Direct links between Lapita and mainland Southeast Asia are still missing, due to a lack of data in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Other scholars like J. Allen located the origin of the Lapita complex in the Bismarck Archipelago that was first colonised 30,000-35,000 BC. Others see obsidian trade as the motor of the spread of Lapita-elements in the western distribution area.
Lapita/Polynesian conundrum
Many scientists believe Lapita pottery in Melanesia to be proof that Polynesians passed through this area on their way into the central Pacific, despite only circumstantial evidence connecting Lapita with Polynesia.
Anita Smith,(An Archaeology of West Polynesian Prehistory, 2002) - when comparing Lapita with plainware ceramics in Polynesia: -
“There do not appear to be new or different kinds of evidence associated with plainware 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).”
Therefore plainware appears to be a simplification of the Lapita cultural complex caused by isolation. Plainware pottery is found on many Polynesian islands and was thought to be a significant player in the transformation of Lapita society into a Polynesian cultural complex. Unfortunately no classical Polynesian artifacts have been found within this plainware assemblage. Archaeological evidence indicates that plainware pottery ceases abruptly in Samoa around 0BC, being replaced by classic Polynesian cultural complex. This clearly indicates a change in the control of the islands, from the waning Lapita settlers to a culture that used gourds, two-piece fishhooks, trolling lures, harpoon heads, tanged adzes, stone pounders and tattooing needles - none of which are found amongst Lapita artifacts.(See Anita Smith, An Archaeology of West Polynesian Prehistory, 2002).
A quote from Anita Smith (An Archaeology of West Polynesian Prehistory, 2002).
“Although ceramics have been used as the primary material culture correlate for cultural change in West Polynesia, they are perhaps least suited to identifying Ancestral Polynesians in the archaeological record. Ceramics were not manufactured by Polynesian societies at any time in East Polynesian prehistory. Therefore trying to connect Lapita and plainware pottery with Polynesians is illogical.”
Matthew Spriggs (The Lapita Cultural Complex, 1985) 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 artifacts".
See also
Teouma - a major archaeological site in Vanuatu
Archaeology in Samoa
References
Sources
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 archaelogical 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
Hundreds of Lapita photographs from the University of Auckland Anthropology Photographic Archive database
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
Category:Archaeological cultures
Category:Prehistory
Category:Polynesia
Category:Oceanian archaeology
