Petrographic and chemical analyses of sherds from the Kurin Lapita site (Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia), ca. 3000–2700 BP

Chiu, Scarlett; Killick, David; Sand, Christophe; Su, Yu yin; Ferguson, Jeffrey R.; Chao, Jiunn Hsing

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102542

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While some studies (e.g. Buhring et al 2015) have suggested that different temper proportions do not prevent the identification of different clay sources in bulk sample analysis, other studies have noted that there can be a considerable effect on overall geochemical composition (Bentley 2000;Chiu 2003:222;Chiu et al 2020). This appears to be particularly exacerbated for shell/coral tempers because of the degradation of Ca and Sr (Ambrose 1982;Cogswell et al 1998), to the point where studies using crushed bulk samples with these types of tempers have used statistical methods to try and cater for this 'dilution' effect (Chiu et al 2020;Cogswell et al 1998) or have removed Ca/Sr from their geochemical compositions altogether (Shaw et al 2016).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The difficulty of sourcing prehistoric pottery from Bootless Bay, Central Province, Papua New Guinea

Ford,

Allen,

Chen

2024

Forty Years in the South Seas: Archaeological Perspectives on the Human History of Papua New Guinea and the Western Pacific Reg

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Various attempts have been made to characterise and source prehistoric pottery assemblages from the south Papuan coast. Foremost among these is the assemblage from the late prehistoric site on Motupore Island near Port Moresby. Here, a specialised pottery industry produced wares that were traded both locally and over long distances. The earliest attempts to source this pottery were experimental and imprecise but offered important insights into the offshore distribution of Motupore pottery. The problematic nature of this early work is most evident in the inability of subsequent studies to reproduce the earlier results. Overcoming this problem was compounded by the loss of early data samples and results in the Canberra fires of 2003. This paper recounts the history of sourcing studies of Motupore pottery. As part of this history, we began an attempt to reconstruct the lost data, as well as using newer techniques to reinvestigate Motupore pottery production and exchange. Expectations that these newer techniques would succeed in matching the early results were not fulfilled. We consider various explanations for this and think that chemical alterations to the sherd fabrics through time and during burial are a likely cause.

show abstract