Lapita and Oceanic Cultural Origins

The Lapita Cultural Complex, ranging 5,000 km from the Bismarck Archipelago to Western Polynesia and spanning the period 3600 to 2500 B.P., represents the initial colonization of the SW Pacific by Austronesian peoples. Recent work in the Bismarck Archipelago, the putative Lapita "homeland," has yielded new data on the initial phases of the Complex. This report summarizes excavations at three Lapita sites in the Mussau Islands. In addition to classically-decorated ceramics, the sites produced a wide array of portable artifacts, faunal materials, and anaerobically-preserved wooden architecture. The implications of these data for Lapita origins, economy, and long-distance exchange are discussed

Archaeology · Archipelago · Art · Colonization · Excavation · Geography · Homeland · Period (music · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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  Open Access•William R Dickinson, Richard Shutler•Journal of World Prehistory•2000

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• Lapita and the temporal geography of prehistory

  Open Access•John Edward Terrell, Robert L Welsch•Antiquity•1997

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• Human skeletal and dental remains from Lapita sites (1600–500 B.C. ) in the Mussau Islands, Melanesia

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• Long‐distance exchange and Island colonization

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• Long-distance Lapita pottery transfers and ancient social relationships

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• The use of Lapita pottery

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• Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Pacific

  Open Access•Bill Jeffery, Jennifer Mckinnon et al.•International Journal of Asia…•2021

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• A Pre-Lapita Structure at Apalo, Arawe Islands, Papua New Guinea

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• Prehistoric Exchange in Western Melanesia

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• Human Genetics, Paleoenvironments, and Malaria

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• Prehistoric Obsidian Exchange in Melanesia

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• Radiocarbon Dates from the Mussau Islands and the Lapita Colonization of the Southwestern Pacific

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• Kosrae's place in Pacific prehistory

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• Is there an early Far Western Lapita province? Sample size effects and new evidence from Eloaua Island

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• Prehistoric social landscapes of the Arawe Islands, West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea

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• The specificities of the ‘Southern Lapita Province

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• The Manufacture of Rochia nilotica rings

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• Counting your chickens

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• Lapita sites of the Bismarck Archipelago

  Open Access•C Gosden, Jyai Allen et al.•Antiquity•1989

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• Early Holocene shell fish hooks from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor establish complex fishing technology was in use in Island South East Asia five thousand years before Austronesian settlement

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• The Teouma Lapita site and the early human settlement of the Pacific Islands

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• Lapita Colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania Boundary

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• Argonauts of the Western Pacific

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• Lapitoid settlements of Futuna and Alofi, Western Polynesia

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• The Lapitoid Period in West Polynesia

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• Radiocarbon Dates from West New Britain, Papua New Guinea

  Jim Specht, Ian Lilley et al.•Australian Archaeology•1981

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• More on Radiocarbon Dates from West New Britain, Papua New Guinea

  Jim Specht, Ian Lilley et al.•Australian Archaeology•1983

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• Radiocarbon Age Calibration of Marine Samples Back to 9000 Cal Yr BP

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• Calibration of radiocarbon dates

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• In search of the Lapita Homeland

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• The Lapita cultural complex

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• The proto‐Oceanic language community∗

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• Lapita pottery of the Bismarck Archipelago and its affinities

  Open Access•Dimitri Anson•Archaeology in Oceania/Archæology…•1986

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• Melanesia

  Open Access•Edwin Doran, H C Brookfield et al.•Geographical Review•1972

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• Sites with Lapita Pottery

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• Studies in Oceanic Culture History

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