Melanesia
The colonization of the remote Pacific began with the spread of the Lapita cultural complex from the Bismarck Archipelago from 3300 BP (Figures 4 And 5). A mixture of Southeast Asian and Melanesian cultural traits, Lapita is typified by highly distinctive pottery, the first ceramics in the Oceanic Austrone-sian-speaking Pacific, which flourished in their classic form until about 2700 BP. The pottery’s elaborate decoration includes stylized human faces, and was created with a dentate (toothed) stamp following systematic rules. Some of the pots were very large and at least some were painted as well as stamped. Other characteristics of the cultural complex included the first domesticated pigs, dogs, and chickens in the Pacific, distinctive shell artifacts, and village locations that allowed easy access for seagoing canoes and longdistance movement of goods, particularly obsidian. Lapita took about 400 years to spread from the Bismarcks to Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. Only a handful of Lapita sherds has been found on the New Guinea mainland, though, and it seems that the cultural complex never became established there. The main Solomons may also have been leapfrogged in the initial Austronesian push out from the Bismarcks. Only late Lapita ceramics have been found in the archipelago, even though classic Lapita is known in the Reef-Santa Cruz islands, which are politically part of the modern state of Solomon Islands but are remote from the main island chain. Current models have late Lapita groups moving into the Solomons proper from the Bismarcks as well as back-migrating from the Reef-Santa Cruz islands. The two groups met at a sharp and well-described linguistic boundary within Oceanic Austronesian known as the Tryon-Hackman Line.
Other models for the settlement of Remote Oceania have been raised from time to time, particularly regarding pre-Lapita/pre-Austronesian migrations and
Figure 4 Yellow tephra (ash) from Mt. Witori eruption c. 3600 BP. This distinctive ash separates pre-Lapita strata from Lapita-period strata in much of western New Britain. Photograph by author.
Figure 5 Dentate-stamped Lapita sherd from New Caledonia. Photograph by Christophe Sand, Director, Department of Archaeology, New Caledonia.
Non-Lapita migrations contemporary with Lapita. It was once thought that New Caledonia in particular was a good case for pre-Austronesian occupation, owing to the presence on various islands in the archipelago of tumuli (mounds) presumed to mark a human presence of great antiquity. Sampling of these sites has found no evidence for either human activity or great antiquity, but their origins remain a mystery. New Caledonia also has Podtanrian pottery. This ware is contemporary with, geochemically identical to, and often associated stratigraphically with local Lapita yet it bears no Lapita decoration, being paddle-impressed instead. Moreover, it persisted for almost 1000 years after Lapita disappeared. It has been taken to reflect a population dispersal contemporary with but separate from Lapita, but is now generally thought to result from social differences within a single migratory group.
In other parts of the southwest Pacific there is little if any pottery dating to the Lapita period but exhibiting non-Lapita decoration. The existence of Podtanrian ceramics is thus a major difference between New Caledonia and the rest of the Lapita domain. There were other differences as well, even if the overall cultural characteristics of the very first settlers were close to those of Lapita groups elsewhere. Thus, Lapita colonists brought the commensal Pacific rat to New Caledonia as elsewhere, but not the critical Lapita triad of pig, dog, or chicken. Nor did they bring kava or the spiny rat, both of which have been linked with Lapita dispersal at least as far south as central Vanuatu. These absences may reflect sampling error, but could imply things were more different at the time of initial landfall than is currently hypothesized.
Be that as it may, it took only a few generations for the first settlers of New Caledonia to develop a range of cultural characteristics that signal the appearance of a distinctive southern Lapita province.
In like vein, it was once hypothesized that Vanuatu was initially occupied by the makers of incised and applied-relief Mangaasi ceramics during the Lapita period, but before the appearance of Lapita pottery and its makers in those islands. Recent excavations have established that Lapita dating to 2900-3000 BP is the earliest cultural evidence, that classic Lapita was replaced within a few centuries by plain or differently decorated wares, that Mangaasi developed only about 2000 BP out of earlier post-Lapita ceramics and that pottery production ceased in the central islands about 1200 BP. At the time of writing, a spectacular new find of a Lapita cemetery at Teouma on the central island of Efats; is promising to add a significant dimension to our knowledge of Vanuatu’s early prehistory.
Fiji is often considered together with neighboring Samoa and Tonga and nearby islands in West Polynesia, but cultural divergences emerged soon after virtually simultaneous Lapita colonization of all three island groups around 2900 BP by people who made what is known as Eastern Lapita, typified by a reduced range of vessel forms and simplified decoration. Lapita evolved into Polynesian Plainware by about 2600 BP. Although links among the archipelagoes were active throughout prehistory, the process of divergence soon saw western Fiji change in ways which tied it to Island Melanesia while patterns in eastern Fiji were more akin to those in Polynesian Samoa and Tonga. This means that in the east the evolution of Plainware also saw the range of vessel forms shrink, leaving assemblages conventionally thought to have been produced by an archaeologically, linguistically, and biologically well-attested ancestral Polynesian society from which all Polynesian societies descend.
Plainware ended throughout Fiji about 1500 years ago, to be replaced by decorated wares suggesting connections with northern Vanuatu. The chronological and technological abruptness of the replacement may indicate new people migrated to Fiji with the ceramics, though some scholars see no connections between post-Lapita changes in Fijian ceramics and those outside the archipelago. Within the last 1000 years, there was widespread agricultural intensification which coincided with the appearance of fortified villages. It is unclear whether the development of fortifications resulted from internal social processes or clashes between immigrants and locals.
It has been argued that there is good evidence for a post-Lapita ‘community of culture’ akin to that of the Lapita period, in the form of synchronous widespread ceramic changes, and specifically the contemporaneous appearance of applied-and-incised decoration broadly similar to Mangaasi in Vanuatu. This grouping is seen to stretch from the Admiralties in the north at least as far as central Vanuatu, and perhaps also to New Caledonia and Fiji. Others have strongly asserted their disagreement, arguing that any widespread similarities result from shared Lapita heritage rather than continuing long-distance interaction. It remains indisputable, though, that historical patterns of human phenotypic variation indicate there was substantial post-Lapita gene-flow through Melanesia, meaning people must have remained connected in some way throughout the region’s late prehistory.
Polynesia
It has been contended that settlement of the huge area of the Pacific beyond West Polynesia was continuous, flowing on without pause after the Lapita settlement of Samoa and Tonga. However, current data place a pause of at least 1000 years in West Polynesia before people moved again after ‘becoming’ the Polynesians ancestral to today’s populations. Precisely when this dispersal occurred is debated. A short chronology indicates colonization of the Marquesas between 1400 and 1700 BP, and perhaps earlier. This archipelago has long been proposed as the first part of East Polynesia to be settled. The short chronology times the settlement of the Cook and Society Islands to no earlier than about 1200-1400 BP, in line with the conventional view that these archipelagoes were bypassed as people spread from West Polynesia to the Marquesas (Figure 6).
The earliest radiocarbon date accepted by the short chronology for remote Easter Island is 800 BP. The best-dated material in Hawai’i signals initial colonization at no more than 1400 BP. The short chronology recognizes only post-1000 BP dates in the remote eastern islands. This reiterates the short chronology for New Zealand in South Polynesia, which proposes first settlement of the mainland in the last 800-1000 years and of the Kermadecs and Chathams by 800 and 700 years ago. This overall pattern accords with geological evidence concerning the emergence above sea level of habitable and/or stepping-stone islands in East Polynesia.
The foregoing dates compress the prehistory of East and South Polynesia, and imply that cultural change was faster than hitherto thought. Critics contend that the short chronology excludes valid earlier dates for environmental change indicative of human activity, that there is evidence the Societies were settled as early as the Marquesas, that there are more than half a dozen secure dates at 1000 BP or earlier in Mangareva and the Pitcairn Group, the region from where Easter Island was colonized, and that by 1200 BP the Marquesas and central archipelagoes were all well-populated and linked by frequent interaction. A long chronology dates occupation of Hawai’i to at least 1200 BP, if not 1500-1800 BP, and proposes that Easter Island was also settled from 1200 to 1300 BP, but accepts the short chronology for South Polynesia.
Whichever chronology is eventually accepted, it is clear that the furthest-flung islands of Polynesia were effectively isolated not long after colonization.
Figure 6 Opunohu Bay, Mo’orea, Society Islands. The stunning landscape is typical of Polynesian high islands and is the remains of an eroded volcanic caldera. Photograph by Dr. Jennifer Kahn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Archaeology, School of Social Science, University of Queensland.
Hawai’i, Easter Island, and New Zealand may have seen occasional visits, but they were all completely cut off at the time of European contact. Interaction waned in the central islands, too, but only after more than five centuries of interaction following colonization. This process saw the societies of the remote Pacific differentiate to a degree while remaining recognizably closely related. The usual sequence saw the appearance of complex centralized chiefdoms structurally like those in West Polynesia, archaeologically associated with agricultural intensification and monumental architecture including the famous moai heads on Easter Island (Figure 7). The Hawaiian chiefdom was the most complex in the Pacific, approaching the status of an archaic state. At the same time, while the West Polynesian and indeed the Lapita roots of East Polynesian cultures remained apparent during the early post-colonization period, the region also witnessed the rapid materialization Of a variety of distinctive traits. The best known are an astonishing diversity of fishing gear, as well as new types of basalt adze. The latter descend from other
Figure 7 The meae lipona, at Puamau, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, Polynesia. Meae, ritual structures often associated with life-size wooden or stone tiki (anthropomorphic sculptures), were elaborated in the Marquesas to an impressive monumental size. This site has the largest tiki in the Marquesas, standing 2.43 m tall. Photograph by Dr. Jennifer Kahn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Archaeology, School of Social Science, Unviersity of Queensland.
Distinctive types created in West Polynesia as colonists there adapted to crossing the ‘Andesite Line’ separating the complex continental geology of the southwest Pacific from the simplified basaltic geology of the more remote Pacific.
New Zealand stands isolated from East Polynesia, not just because it is geographically remote but also because its combined land area is very large and it has a temperate rather than tropical or subtropical climate. This meant that East Polynesian colonists could grow only a restricted range of their familiar domestic plants, and then only in the North Island and the north of the South Island. Nor did domestic pigs or chickens make it: dogs alone survived the transfer. In the colder and more mountainous South Island, people gave up agriculture altogether to become full-time foragers. This process was aided by the presence throughout New Zealand of various species of flightless birds called moa, some of which were three times the size of a modern ostrich. All were exterminated by hunting or habitat modification, continuing a pattern of human environmental impact that played out throughout Remote Oceania and in places such as Easter Island reached extremes which dramatically undermined people’s capacity to survive.
Two other aspects of Polynesian migration need to be mentioned briefly. The first is the presence of the ‘Polynesian outliers’. These are Polynesian communities in Melanesia and Micronesia resulting from westerly back-migration in the recent prehistoric and early historic periods. They remind us that while the strength of population movement certainly waxed and waned through Pacific prehistory, it never ceased entirely. The second phenomenon worthy of a passing note is what are known as the Mystery Islands. These are places such as Norfolk Island, off Australia, which exhibit signs of prehistoric use by Polynesians but which were unpopulated when first found by Europeans. They indicate that while the settlement of the remote Pacific was a prodigious feat, some colonies ultimately failed. In some cases, this was because the Mystery Islands were simply too remote and resource-poor to sustain viable human societies without contact with parent communities.
Micronesia
Historical linguistics indicate that Central and Eastern Micronesia were settled from Vanuatu or the southeast Solomons, but archaeological research has revealed few connections dating to late or early post-Lapita times. None of the high islands of the Carolines - from west to east, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae - has an archaeologically complete cultural sequence. Colonization occurred about 2000 BP (Figure 8). After a series of changes including the loss of ceramics by about 500 BP, Pohnpei and Kosrae went on to develop complex chiefdoms with astonishing monumental architecture (Figure 9). The Micronesian atolls were first occupied at the same time as the high islands. Atoll societies did not develop complex political systems. At scarcely 3 m above sea level, they are fascinating nonetheless owing to the adaptations needed to cope with life on such small, remote, and precarious landforms. Shell technology was highly developed in the absence of stone, and the Caroline Islanders had the most sophisticated seafaring technologies in the Pacific. Interestingly, shell technology also dominated on the rocky high islands, suggesting they were first settled by atoll-dwellers.
Western Micronesia was settled straight from Southeast Asia, and/or Taiwan in the case of the Mariana Islands. There are earlier indications for environmental disturbance but reliable direct evidence for human activity in the Marianas and Palau dates to a maximum of 3500 and 3300 BP respectively, and in Yap to about 2000 BP. This has given rise to the same sort of debate about short and long chronologies seen elsewhere in the Pacific. The short chronology indicates initial occupation of Western Micronesia around the same time as the beginning of Lapita in the Bismarcks, but the two dispersals were probably not related. The earliest Western Micronesian ceramics, Marianas Red ware and Lime Infilled ware, are only generically similar to Lapita, suggesting a common origin in Southeast Asia.
Figure 8 Chuuk Lagoon, Chuuk (Truk), Micronesia. Photograph by Dr. Paul Rainbird, Head, Department Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales.
Figure 9 Monumental architecture on the artificial islet of Nan Douwas, Nan Madol, Pohnpei, Micronesia. Photograph by Dr. Paul Rainbird, Head, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales.
World History
