Lapita lithics: trade/exchange and technology. A view from the Reefs/Santa Cruz

Abstract

An analysis of the obsidian and chert flaked stone assemblages from three Reefs/Santa Cruz Lapita sites (SE-SZ-8, SE-RF-2, SE-RF-6) is presented. Data on extraction, transport, core reduction, tool use and deposition are examined to see how well they fit a resource maximization model. It is concluded that factors other than utilitarian resource maximization are significant for an understanding of the use and distribution of lithic raw materials at these sites. It is suggested that transported obsidian and chert may have a complex commodity value history of which only the last stage is represented at the archaeological sites.

Northern Vanuatu as a Pacific Crossroads: The Archaeology of Discovery, Interaction, and the Emergence of the "Ethnographic Present"

“…It is providing insights into wider issues such as the pattern and strategy of Lapita settlement in Remote Oceania. There are several trademark artifacts (primarily pottery and obsidian) along with distinctive aspects to midden composition that are seen as proxies in Remote Oceania for identifying colonization-phase settlements and measuring the strength of connections with sites farther to the west, including the Bismarcks homeland (Green 1976(Green , 2003Green and Kirch 1997;Sheppard 1993).…”

Were the First Lapita Colonisers of Remote Oceania Farmers as Well as Foragers?

“…There is clear evidence that the colonists for a time maintained a long-distance trade network through which significant quantities of obsidian from Talasea on the Willaumez Peninsula in New Britain were transported to Reefs-Santa Cruz in the Eastern Solomons (Sheppard 1993), smaller but still substantial quantities to Northern and Central Vanuatu (Galipaud et al 2014;Reepmeyer et al 2011) and still smaller quantities to New Caledonia and Fiji. Reefs-Santa Cruz sites also contain some low-grade obsidian from the Banks Island and chert from Ulawa and Malaita in the main Solomons group (Spriggs 1997).…”

The Early Prehistory of Fiji

“…On the one hand, an already established population in the main Solomon Islands inhibited early Lapita occupation, and on the other, the discovery that uninhabited islands east of the main Solomons held dense and easily accessible marine and terrestrial resources encouraged long-distance movement and avoidance of the main Solomons. While there are linguistic and archaeological critiques of the idea (Felgate 2007;Pawley n.d.), including the fact that substantial quantities of chert found in early Lapita sites in the Reef/Santa Cruz Islands originate from Ulawa/south Malaita 400 km away in the central Solomons (Sheppard 2003), it remains a valid hypothesis (e.g. Lilley 2008).…”

“…To reach Vanuatu and New Caledonia from the Reef/Santa Cruz Islands requires voyaging south over a total of 10 degrees of latitude, although no inter-island distance is greater than 250 km. However, if the main Solomon Islands were avoided by Lapita colonists, and extensive contact between the Bismarck Archipelago and the Reef/Santa Cruz Islands was maintained, as the volume of Talasea obsidian in the RF-2 site suggests (Sheppard 2003), then canoe voyages of more than 800 km might have been routinely undertaken during Lapita expansion to Remote Oceania.…”

“…3000 years ago are often portrayed as simple, expedient, homogeneous and typologically depauperate. Recent technological analyses, however, are beginning to reveal significant variation in the types of reduction strategies employed in different regions and sites, as well as in the degree to which raw materials of various origins were reduced, conserved and curated (Halsey 1995;Sheppard 1992Sheppard , 1993Swete Kelly 2001). These studies have largely been concerned with identifying the mechanisms and quantities in which raw materials (but typically obsidian) were distributed across the Pacific at different times.…”