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Lapita is the common name of an ancient Pacific Ocean culture which is believed by some to be the common ancestor of several cultures in Polynesia and surrounding areas. The type site in New Caledonia was discovered in 1952. The word Lapita itself is not a place name. A word in a local New Caledonian language, xaapeta, meaning 'dig a hole', was misheard as, and became, lapita.
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, the Lapita culture is found from 800 BC onwards. The colonisation spread from the Fiji-Samoa-Tonga area to Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. However, no pottery was carried further into Polynesia.
Material culture
The low-fired earthenware pottery, often tempered with shell or sand, is typically decorated with a dentate (toothed) stamp, and it has been theorised that these decorations may have been transferred to or from less hardy mediums like 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 and tree crops, most importantly taro and yam, coconuts, bananas and breadfruit varieties. 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 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 heads removed after 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.Graves of the Pacific's First Seafarers Revealed, Richard Stone, Science Magazine, 21 April 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5772, p. 360 *
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 ie 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. 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 can not be verified by independent sources.
Origin
A Southeast Asian origin of the Lapita complex is assumed by most scholars, perhaps originating in Taiwan or southern China some 10,000 years ago. Intrepid explorers sailing out into the East, the 'Vikings of the sunrise' (Buck 1938), were proposed as spreading civilisation to the furthest reaches of the globe. Burial pottery similar to "red slip" pottery of Taiwan seems to lend support to this theory.
P. Bellwood sees the neolithic dispersal as driven by a rapid population growth in east and southeast Asia (Formosa). The model is called 'the express-train to Polynesia'. 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, like Green propose a combination of intrusion, innovation and integration (the triple I-model). Others see obsidian trade as the motor of the spread of Lapita-elements in the western distribution area.
References
Sources
- J. Allen, In Search of the Lapita Homeland: Reconstructing the Prehistory of the Bismarck Archipelago, Journal of Pacific History 19/4, 1984, 186-187.
- P. Bellwood, Man's conquest of the Pacific (London, Collis 1978).
- G. Clark/A. Anderson/T. Vunidilo, The archaeology of Lapita dispersal in Oceania: papers from the 4th Lapita conference, June 2000 (Canberra, Pandanus Books), 15-23.
- Glenn R Summerhayes, Far Western, Western and Eastern Lapita: A re-evaluation. Asian Perspectives 39/1-2, 2000, 109-138.
- K. Chino, Lapita Pottery — Ties in the South Pacific: Wave Of Pacifika Vol. 8 2002, Sasakawa Pacific Island Nations Fund (SPINF), Tokyo, Japan (http://www.spf.org/spinf/news/pdf/wop8.pdf)
- A. Noury, Le reflet de l'ame Lapita, Noury Ed., Paris, ISBN 2-9524455-0-8
External links
- http://www.ahs.cqu.edu.au/humanities/history/52148/modules/pacific_peoplesA.html#lapita, with picture of pottery
- http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/5/2563 on extinctions connected with the spread of Lapita
"Lapita"