Lapita Colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania Boundary

Multi-isotopic analysis of first Polynesian diet (Talasiu, Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga)

“…In less than 500 years after the first arrivals in the pristine islands, food resources used by humans appear to have largely changed. Consumption of wild terrestrial and marine foods decreased and the agricultural component of the diet increased (Davidson et al, 2002;Kirch, 2002;Anderson, 2009;Sheppard, 2011). A declining midHolocene sea level and human-induced landscape alteration including deforestation and faunal extinctions have been identified as potential driving forces that -coupled with an increasing emphasis on the products of horticulture-caused significant dietary change between the beginning and the end of the Lapita period (Clark and Anderson, 2009;Cochrane et al, 2011;Sheppard, 2011).…”

“…Consumption of wild terrestrial and marine foods decreased and the agricultural component of the diet increased (Davidson et al, 2002;Kirch, 2002;Anderson, 2009;Sheppard, 2011). A declining midHolocene sea level and human-induced landscape alteration including deforestation and faunal extinctions have been identified as potential driving forces that -coupled with an increasing emphasis on the products of horticulture-caused significant dietary change between the beginning and the end of the Lapita period (Clark and Anderson, 2009;Cochrane et al, 2011;Sheppard, 2011). From a dietary change perspective there are three issues in our understanding of Lapita subsistence that require investigation: (1) what was the balance between native animal, plant and marine foods and introduced foods, especially tuber crops?, (2) did the shift toward horticultural foods occur soon after colonization everywhere in the Pacific?,and (3) what influence did population size and mobility have on these processes?…”

Geochemical Characterization of Lapita Ceramics From the Western Solomon Islands by Means of Portable X-Ray Fluorescence and Scanning Electron Microscopy

“…The distribution of Lapita pottery (Figure 1) constitutes an important temporal marker for human dispersal as it is associated with the initial settlement beyond the main Solomon Islands into Remote Oceania, first from the Bismarck Archipelago into the Santa Cruz group at circa 3100 cal BP and then from that region on out as far as New Caledonia and Samoa (Sheppard 2011). Current models based on data from the Bismarck Archipelago and Remote Oceania suggest that Lapita people become increasingly regionalized over time with decreasing evidence of long-distance interaction (Summerhayes 2000(Summerhayes , 2001.…”

“…Unlike the Bismarck Archipelago to the north and the Reef/Santa Cruz region on the edge of Remote Oceania to the southeast, the Western Solomon Islands region lacks evidence of Early Lapita, presenting only Late/Post Lapita (2700-2100 cal BP) and Roviana Tradition (800-100 [historic] cal BP) pottery (Felgate 2003;Sheppard 2011;Walter and Sheppard 2009). The Lapita movement into the Western Solomons appears to represent a late intrusion out of the Bismarck Archipelago (Sheppard 2011;Sheppard and Walter 2006) possibly related to an apparently contemporaneous Late Lapita movement along the coast of Papua New Guinea to the Port Moresby region (McNiven et al 2011).…”

The Naturalist and his "Beautiful Islands": Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific

“…The southern extension of this movement reached through New Ireland, Bougainville and onto the Solomon Islands as far as Santa Ana off Makira (Sheppard 2011: 799-840). At present we know that the northern and western Solomon Islands were settled by Austronesian-speaking and ceramic-producing peoples in the Late Lapita period around 2,600 BP (Sheppard and Walter 2006: 48;Sheppard 2011). There are numerous Lapita sites in the culturally important Roviana and Marovo Lagoons in the New Georgia region where the abundance of resource rich lagoons and large islands facilitated coastal settlement.…”