Continuity and change in Lapita and post‐Lapita ceramics: a review of evidence from the Admiralty Islands and New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

But whether the Lapita event was simply a trigger for local change, an incidental maker for changes already underway, or marked the presence of sustained influential factors from abroad, is at present not clear in the archaeological record from Manus' (Ambrose 1991:112). AbstractAlthough a relationship between Lapita and post-Lapita ceramic traditions has long been suspected, a systematic and detailed examination of similarities and differences between them has not been previously made. An important first step is to determine the nature of change from one to the other by examining pottery from sites which have the full ceramic sequence. My analyses of ceramic assemblages from Manus and New Ireland demonstrate continuity between the two traditions. This paper summarises results from a larger analysis of Melanesian ceramic assemblages (Wahome 1995). It addresses the intriguing question of whether there is continuity from Lapita to post-Lapita pottery by focusing on the transition in the Admiralties and the adjacent island of New Ireland. The two areas are particularly important because of their historic links in the form of trade and exchange through time (see Ambrose 1991). The overlaps and continuations in ceramic form and design in the studied assemblages show both change and continuity between Lapita and post-Lapita ceramics in the Admiralties and Island Melanesia at large.In Island Melanesia, evidence of post-Lapita ceramics has been documented in the Admiralties,

TA31: The Early Prehistory of Fiji

“…The prehistory of Fiji in the post-colonisation period was also enigmatic, with potential stylistic influences from Southeast Asia and several Melanesian Islands (New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia) seen in Fijian ceramics (Gifford 1951:224, 236-237;Solheim 1952a, b;Frost 1970:252;Vanderwal 1973:209;Golson 1974:568, 573). Largescale investigations on Lakeba Island by Best (1984:216, 493) suggested a ceramic record that had received inputs from New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and a broader pan-Melanesian ceramic style was suggested by Wahome (1997Wahome ( , 1998, who proposed that '. .…”

Post‐colonization Interaction Between Vanuatu and Fiji Reconsidered: The Re‐analysis of Obsidian From Lakeba Island, Fiji*

“…The possibility that low‐level interaction and contact between Vanuatu and Fiji influenced the ceramic trajectory of Fiji should not be entirely ruled out, because archaeological understanding of culture contact and its effect on ceramic transmission is still in its infancy in the Pacific (Clark and Murray 2006; Cochrane 2008), and the geochemical database of archaeological items from the West and Central Pacific is relatively small and focused on obsidians and ceramics. Nonetheless, a probable origin for the Group 2 obsidian in Fiji–Tonga, combined with diminishing ceramic support for a connection between Fiji and Vanuatu, demonstrates that no large‐scale network spanned the West and Central Pacific in post‐Lapita times (Spriggs 1997, 2004; Wahome 1997). Thus, hypotheses that focus on internal archipelago‐based cultural processes (e.g., Clark 2000; Field 2004, 94) are likely to have greater explanatory potential for understanding post‐Lapita societies than do those that emphasize the significance of long‐distance interaction and migration between the islands of the West and Central Pacific.…”

Reviews

“…Bedford is known to have a reluctance for any large-scale "pan-Melanesian" ceramic continuity scenario (Bedford and Clark 2001). His discussion of inter-regional comparisons is mainly directed towards demonstrating the absence of clear typological connections between the post-Lapita ceramic sequences in Island Melanesia, in sharp contrast to the conclusions arrived at by E. Wahome (1997).…”