Date: Wednesday July 4th 

Session Convener: Christophe Sand 

Email: christophe.sand@gouv.nc

New Caledonia Museum, New Caledonia

 
Lapita ceramic was recognized in the 1950s-60s mainly through its dentate-stamped designs. Over the succeeding decades, a series of refinements have led to the definition of a Western and an Eastern style (Green 1979), the identification of a Far Western Province (Anson 1983), the creation of a Southern Province (Kirch 1997), and the questioning of a putative central region (Sand 2001). In parallel, more and more sophisticated statistical methods of motif recording (Mead, Anson, Siorat, Sharp, Noury, Chiu and Sand) have helped to disentangle the similarities from the differences among related Lapita sites throughout the Western Pacific, leading to the proposal of a chronological partition of Lapita into Early, Middle and Late periods (Summerhayes 2000).

Over the last decade, detailed excavations have helped to refine regional Lapita chronologies. These new studies have shown that a simple decay model of motif simplification from West to East could not account entirely for what was observed in the sites. Local dynamics were at work in each sub-region and between related communities, integrating founder effect, site-specific developments, secondary arrivals of groups, isolation etc. The mainly one way arrow, down the line type of model from the Bismarck Archipelago to central Melanesia, and from there to Southern Melanesia and to Fiji-West-Polynesia, probably shadows numerous secondary arrows in multiple directions.

We are today in the position to start looking at the subtle differences between the remains buried in different sites, to identify these local specificities. As has been done for the founder site of Nukuleka in Tongatapu (Dickinson and Burley 2001), it should be possible to identify the few diagnostic typological elements that connect a given site to others throughout the region. Pinpointing the ceramic tradition introduced by the first discoverers in one place and the evolution witnessed over the succeeding generations, would greatly ease subsequent inter-site comparisons. It would also allow us to put to the test our regional models, by defining for example more precisely the chronological significance and local differences of a “Western Province”, the origin(s) of the Eastern Lapita style or the existence of two different Lapita “groups” sailing towards Remote Oceania.

This session welcomes papers dealing with site-specific or region-specific synthesis data on the evolutionary tarjectories, transformations and diversifications observable in Lapita ceramics and what these data tell us of the complexities of the founder Austronesian communities. The session also welcomes more theoretical papers about the cultural dynamics of the Lapita settler societies, imbedded and reflected in ceramic evolution. 

 

 

Papers

2:00pm

« Strings of pearls » and Provinces: modeling the divergent ceramic chronologies of  the Western Pacific during the Lapita period

Christophe Sand

Dept of Archaeology, New Caledonia

 

Over the last two decades, the “complexity” of the Lapita Complex has become more and more evident, with the identification of multiple cultural trajectories at work between 3500 and 2500 BP in the Western Pacific. A simple scenario of Western and Eastern Lapita has been replaced by a profusion of Provinces, each with its inner specificities and localized ceramic developments. This paper will try to identify the major trends that can be defined for each geographic region in terms of Lapita settlement chronology and ceramic changes over time. A series of case studies will highlight the major differences that can today be seen in the Lapita ceramic repertoire. These data should allow to discuss on firmer ground lasting links, secondary settlements as well as the breakdown of relations between Lapita communities during the end second-first millennium BC.

 

 

2:30pm

"Lapita Mobility: What Archaeology tells us about Oceanic Language Subgrouping"

Matthew Spriggs
Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University,

 

This paper reviews ideas and evidence concerning Lapita population mobility, and concludes that mobility of individuals and perhaps whole communities immediately after the phase of initial Lapita expansion was unparalleled until the modern era of transnational migration in the Pacific. Such mobility is tracked, as Summerhayes (2003,. 2004) argued for the Bismarck archipelago, by patterns of movement of pottery and obsidian, and in addition and most directly by isotopic studies of skeletal remains. The timing of the decrease in levels of mobility across the Lapita realm has major implications for understanding the sub-grouping of the Oceanic Austronesian languages and the break-up of Proto-Oceanic that have not been fully understood to date.

 

 

3:00pm

Holocene interaction spheres: implications of Melanesian antecedents to Lapita

Robin Torrence

Australian Museum, Sydney 

 

Archaeological assemblages associated with Lapita style pottery in the Bismarck Archipelago are often portrayed as representing something very new and as such they have been assumed to be derived primarily from somewhere else.  One of the main reasons for Lapita’s apparent novelty is the lack of archaeological research on the mid-Holocene period in the region.  Another factor is the focus on static material culture rather than dynamic cultural process.  Recent findings about the nature and distribution of obsidian flaked tools and stone mortars indicate that there were a number of overlapping interaction zones within the islands and between the New Guinea mainland and the islands prior to the appearance of Lapita pottery.  The implications of how these may have functioned and potential reasons for why they changed provide an important backdrop for questioning the nature of cultural changes in the Bismarck Archipelago that might be signaled by Lapita pottery.

 

 3:30pm

"Definition of Initial Eastern Lapita style"

Tomo Ishimura (with Patrick D. Nunn, Roselyn Kumar, and Sepeti Matararaba)

National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Nara, Japan

 

Recent excavations at Bourewa and Moturiki in Fiji reveal the presence of the Western Lapita style ceramics in the assemblages earlier than 3000 BP in the Eastern Lapita province. Conventional Early Eastern style is likely to be confined to the assemblages after 2900 BP. Preliminary analysis of Bourewa ceramics shows that the assemblage includes a series of Western, Early Eastern, and Late Eastern style ceramics. Radiocarbon dates indicate long duration of the site occupation from 3000 to 2500 BP. We define the Western style ceramics as the earliest type in the chronological sequence of the Bourewa ceramics. Then we propose to define the Western style in the Eastern province as “Initial Eastern Lapita style” that dates back to 3000 BP, and present new chronological framework.

 

4:00pm 

Afternoon Tea

 

4:30pm

"Complex models for complex processes: explaining Lapita and post-Lapita variability"

Ian Lilley

University of Queensland

 

Continuing refinements in our understanding of the spatial and temporal variability of Lapita and in post-Lapita developments raise the question of how we can best explain the events and processes entailed. This paper considers what alternatives we might have at different scales of resolution and in relation to the presence or absence of pre-Lapita settlement.

 

5:00pm

"Lapita ceramics and later transformations across the Vanuatu archipelago: a combination of increasing clarity and complication."

Stuart Bedford

Australian National University

 

Recent excavations in Vanuatu are at last providing a nascent profile of Lapita ceramics across much of archipelago. The Lapita ceramics to date highlight both differences and similarities between the north and south of Vanuatu and the wider region. Some motifs suggest that there much have been very rapid movement into Remote Oceania from the ‘homelands’ region while others indicate a subsequent reduced regional sphere of interaction with connections to Reefs-Santa Cruz, New Caledonia and Fiji while others suggest possible subsequent connections much further to the east. There is certainly evidence of simplification over time (rapid) but what complicates the seriation picture somewhat is the evidence that both simple and more complex designs may well be contemporary in some sites in Vanuatu as in other regions. Post-Lapita ceramic transformations in Vanuatu are also briefly reviewed in the light of arguments relating to levels of social interaction.

 

5:30pm

"Morphological characteristics of Lapita pottery: Case studies of ceramic assemblages collected from Site 13A, New Caledonia, and RF-2, Solomon Islands"

Scarlett Chiu

Academia Sinica

 

This paper will concentrate on the reconstruction and comparison of Lapita vessel forms from two major collections: Site 13A of New Caledonia, and RF-2, Reef/Santa Cruz of the Solomon Islands. Materials used in this study will be from the 1996 excavated pottery assemblage, with selected 1992 and 1994 units of Site 13A, and the pottery collections from both 1971 and 1976 excavations of RF-2. Based on previous reconstructions built, this paper offers a classification scheme for future re-construction of vessel forms, and addresses the results of comparison observed from these 2 sites. Comparison among these two sites with other areas will also be addressed.