The Lapita pottery of Tamuarawai (EQS), Emirau Island, Papua New Guinea: Studying the form and decoration of one of the earliest pottery assemblages in the western Pacific

Abstract

Over a three-year period beginning in 2007, a new Lapita site called Tamuarawai was revealed. Tamuarawai, located on the island of Emirau in the northern Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea, belongs to a selected group of exceedingly rare Early Lapita sites that chronicle the arrival of Austronesian-speaking populations in the western Pacific. The primary archaeological signature of such populations is intricately decorated, complex pottery that is unique among all the sites of the Lapita range and represents an important source of information pertaining to the lives of the Early Lapita populations. The aim of this research is to document the full range of vessel forms and decoration of the pottery assemblages of this unique site, and to employ these data to further understand the lives of those that occupied it. Drawing upon both current understandings concerning the social functions of plain and decorated Lapita pottery and the distribution of vessel forms and their decoration, it looks to clarify the range of activities occurring across the site, and in so doing, to ascertain whether (1) it represented a specialised fishing camp or a hamlet when first settled in the Early Lapita Period, and (2) whether subsequent phases of occupation occurred after the Early Period, and if so, how this Lapita settlement changed over time. The study concludes that the ceramic and broader archaeological record indicates the site most likely represented a small hamlet occupied during the Early Lapita Period, with no subsequent phases of Lapita occupation. It further argues that separate activity areas, delineating between highly socially significant and more utilitarian activities, can be seen within the archaeological record.