Obsidian distribution from a <scp>L</scp>apita cemetery sheds light on its value to past societies

Constantine, Anne; Reepmeyer, Christian; Bedford, Stuart; Spriggs, Matthew; Ravn, Mads

doi:10.1002/arco.5064

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…BP (Petchey et al 2014;Petchey et al 2015). These dates, along with the presence terra australis 52 of West New Britain obsidian (Constantine et al 2015;Reepmeyer et al 2010), a range of extinct fauna (White et al 2010;Worthy et al 2015) and the diversity of pottery vessels and motifs indicate that it is a colonising site on Efate cf. Sheppard 1993).…”

Section: Archaeological Sites-efate Teoumamentioning

confidence: 95%

Lapita to Post-Lapita transition: Insights from the chemical analysis of pottery from the sites of Teouma, Mangaasi, Vao and Chachara, Vanuatu

Leclerc¹

2019

Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence

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Lapita and Post-Lapita ceramic collections from four archaeological sites scattered across two of the main islands of Vanuatu were characterised using LA-ICP-MS. Results from the analysis of 112 ceramic samples show that the decorated ceramics from Lapita sites are generally more compositionally variable than the later assemblages. Not only do the early sites contain more exotic samples, but the early locally made decorated vessels also display a wider compositional range. This is interpreted as revealing behaviours of potters initially settling into new territories before developing recurrent habits in terms of pottery manufacture. The decrease in variability of the technological styles encountered between Lapita and Post-Lapita occupations suggest that important social modifications occurred: increasingly sedentary populations, changes in the social structure and political economy, and the collapse of the symbolic Lapita belief system and its ceremonial practices. Source: Illustration by author. 17. Lapita to Post-Lapita transition 351 terra australis 52 Technological style During the course of pottery manufacturing, as is the case for any object produced, many technological choices have to be taken by the potter in order to reach their goal and produce a ceramic vessel that is satisfying in every aspect (performance, appearance, economic and symbolic role, etc.). These behaviours are adopted and chosen among a vast array of equifinal possibilities based on choices that are meaningful socially, economically and ideologically (Lechtman 1977; Rye 1976; Sillar and Tite 2000). Technology can thus be considered as 'the materialisation of social thought' (Dobres and Hoffman 1994:221). If we consider 'style' as the manifest impression of cultural patterning (Lechtman 1977:4), or in other words as the part of formal variability in material culture that is culturally significant, active and conveying information (Conkey 1978; Wobst 1977:321), then technology has a style of its own. This technological style comprises the stylistic elements embedded into its technological features and is the expression, on the level of technological behaviour, of underlying cultural values,

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Section: Archaeological Sites-efate Teoumamentioning

confidence: 95%

Lapita to Post-Lapita transition: Insights from the chemical analysis of pottery from the sites of Teouma, Mangaasi, Vao and Chachara, Vanuatu

Leclerc¹

2019

Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence

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“…Would short use-life and focus on only one source imply obsidian as a luxury item for the accumulation of wealth? Variations in burial practices at the Teouma cemetery in Vanuatu possibly reflect different social positions of individuals (Valentin et al, 2011), but there is no evidence for the accumulation of obsidian by individuals (Constantine et al, 2015).…”

Section: Values Of Obsidianmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dominant interpretation of the role of obsidian in Lapita societies currently is that it was transported for its social value connecting populations to a founding 'homeland' (Green, 1987: 246;Kirch, 1988: 113;. These interpretations have also been applied to artefact assemblages from Vanuatu (Reepmeyer et al, 2011;Galipaud et al, 2014;Constantine et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Specht¹,

Attenbrow²,

Allen³

2021

Tech. Rep. Aust. Mus., Online

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Electron microprobe analyses were conducted on volcanic glasses extracted from Holocene tephra marker beds on the Willaumez isthmus in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. These tephra beds are pivotal in the dating of a wide range of human artefacts and manuports found in the intervening buried soils, extending back over the last 40,000 years. Three major groups can be easily separated: W-K1 and 2; W-K3 and 4; and the Dakataua tephra. Of the remaining post-W-K4 tephras, most show slightly higher FeO and CaO and lower SiO 2 contents than the W-K3 and 4 group, although there is some overlap. The combination of these geochemical data sets with the known stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates has helped resolve tephra correlation where these ashes become thin and less visually diagnostic or where pumice has been resorted and redeposited by the Kulu-Dulagi River.

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“…That suggestion has since proven incorrect (Tochilin et al 2012), but the material still came from west of the Solomons, specifically Muyuw-Woodlark Island in the Massim archipelago off the Papuan Tip. Combined with factors such as the presence of obsidian from Fergusson Island in the Massim in both the Reef Islands' Lapita site SE-RF-2 and at Teouma in Vanuatu to the south-east of the main Solomons (for the latter see Constantine et al 2015) and in the Post-Lapita Oposisi site on Yule Island on the edge the Papuan Gulf far to the west, the Woodlark finding led Sheppard and colleagues (2015:74-77) to hypothesise the existence of an east-west interaction sphere that also facilitated the appearance of Late Lapita on the Papuan coast and the presence of Late Lapita ceramics in Torres Strait. Sheppard et al do not mention the Lizard Island finds in this context, but Clark and Bedford (2008:70) recall in this same connection that Irwin (1992:143) predicted a generation ago that Lapita would be found in such locations (though not specifically Lizard), on the strength of a 100 per cent success rate of simulated one-way sailing voyages from the Solomons to northern Australia.…”

Section: Push and Pull Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lapita: The Australian connection

Lilley¹

2019

Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence

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Recent research in southern New Guinea, Torres Strait and northeastern Australia suggests that Lapita users and possibly makers may have been present in regions hitherto believed to be beyond their reach. In New Guinea, the discovery of Late Lapita near Port Moresby has been augmented by findings of Late Lapita ceramics in the western Gulf of Papua. Southwest of the Gulf, undiagnostic locally made ceramics dating to around 2500 years ago are now known in the western Torres Strait. Other, somewhat younger, pottery has been found in the eastern Strait, some of it (or at least some of its constituents) from New Guinea. In addition, undiagnostic locally made surface pottery has recently been found on Lizard Island off Cape York Peninsula. This material is undated but hypothesised to be pre-colonial. Although Macassan fisherman left ceramics and other material remains on the northern Australian coast in the centuries just prior to European settlement, pre-colonial ceramics of any greater antiquity have never been found before in Torres Strait or on mainland Australia or its offshore islands. The proximity of the northern Australian find-spots to the new discoveries of Lapita in southern New Guinea, and the dating of at least some of the Torres Strait pottery to Late Lapita times, raises dramatic new possibilities regarding the course of prehistory in those areas.

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Obsidian distribution from a Lapita cemetery sheds light on its value to past societies

Abstract: ABSTRACT

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

Lapita to Post-Lapita transition: Insights from the chemical analysis of pottery from the sites of Teouma, Mangaasi, Vao and Chachara, Vanuatu

Lapita to Post-Lapita transition: Insights from the chemical analysis of pottery from the sites of Teouma, Mangaasi, Vao and Chachara, Vanuatu

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Lapita: The Australian connection

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