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Monumentality and the development of the Tongan maritime chiefdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Geoffrey Clark ,
David Burley  and
Tim Murray
Geoffrey Clark
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia (Email: [email protected])
David Burley
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
Tim Murray
Affiliation:
School of Historical and European Studies, Martin Building, La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia
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Abstract

On Tongatapu the central place of the rising kingdom of Tonga developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Marked out as a monumental area with a rock-cut water-carrying ditch, it soon developed as the site of a sequence of megalithic tombs, in parallel with the documented expansion of the maritime chiefdom. The results of investigations into these structures were achieved with minimum intervention and disturbance on the ground, since the place remains sacred and in use.

Keywords

TongaNeolithicMegalithicfifteenth century ADchiefdomkingdommortuary practiceprincely burial
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 318 , December 2008 , pp. 994 - 1008
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

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