Lapita pottery from the small islands of north-east Malakula, Vanuatu: A brief overview and implications

Abstract

A series of well-preserved Lapita sites was first identified on the small islands of Uripiv, Wala, Atchin and Vao, Malakula, in northern Vanuatu in 2001-2002. Further excavation on Vao and particularly Uripiv continued until 2011. The pottery shows the standard similarities with Lapita pottery generally but also demonstrates the development of very distinctive regional and even island-specific variation in form and motif design during the Lapita period. It suggests very rapid change in pottery form and decoration soon after initial colonisation of the archipelago; an aspect largely masked by the radiocarbon chronology. It also confirms that regional diversification was well underway during the Lapita period itself. This may relate both to the potential that these communities came from different origin points further west and that even during a single generation a range of factors may have encouraged localisation in a range of practices including pottery production.

The archipelago of meaning: Methodological contributions to the study of Vanuatu sand drawing

“…Integrating sand drawing studies with adjacent fields of research like archaeology or evolutionary anthropology could also potentially contribute to a better understanding of how Lapita culture, the Neolithic Austronesian people, settled regions of Oceania between 1600 to 500 BCE. The striking resemblance between patterns found in some Lapita potteries 18 (Figure 49; Bedford, 2019, p. 233), and the identical pattern made of arcs, lines and loops, found in every Paamese sand drawing, gives an idea of how fine‐grained, systematic and cross‐disciplinary studies of Vanuatu sand drawing studies have the potential to open new horizons of research.…”

An update on Late Lapita: Its manifestations and associated implications

“…Zone markers, a defining feature of Middle Lapita designs, particularly on carinated vessels, become rare. Overall, Late Lapita is thought to have undergone a simplification in both form and decoration that involved diminished input of labour and a shift away from stricter social rules relating to vessel form and design use in association with pottery function (Bedford 2015(Bedford , 2019Bedford and Galipaud 2010;Burley et al 2002;Burley and Dickinson 2004;Clark 2007;Clark and Anderson 2009;David et al 2011;Sand 2015;Specht 1968:131-132;Summerhayes 2000;Wu 2016). It is difficult to be definitive regarding the timing of the end of Lapita due to the flat section of the calibration curve at this crucial period, but most archaeologists would agree that dentate stamping continuing anywhere much beyond 2700 BP seems highly unlikely (Burley et al 2018;Kirch 2021:163;Sand 2010b:233).…”

Modelling prehistoric social interaction in the south-western Pacific: a view from the obsidian sources in northern Vanuatu. In From Field to Museum—Studies from Melanesia in Honour of Robin Torrence, ed. Jim Specht, Val Attenbrow, and Jim Allen

“…These groups have been described as potentially small and highly mobile initially leaving only a small footprint of human occupation; primarily, but not exclusively, on small off-shore islands (Bedford and Sprigg, 2008). The small size and low number of initial groups have been hypothesised to be prime cause explaining subtle difference in the archaeological record of Lapita sites (Bedford, 2019), and this differentiation has been associated with the emergence of 'localised ethnic identities' (Green and Kirch, 1997: 30). The detailed process of this population movement is unclear (Sheppard, 2011), as are likely reasons for it.…”