Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:11:13.709Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social networks and the spread of Lapita

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Robin Torrence  and
Pamela Swadling
Robin Torrence
Affiliation:
Anthropology, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Pamela Swadling
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Lapita pottery seems to arrive in the Pacific out of the blue, and signal a new social, economic or ideological network. The authors show that widespread interaction, articulated by obsidian tools and stone mortars and pestles decorated with various motifs, was already in existence in New Guinea and New Britain. These earlier networks provide a preview of the social interaction that was to light up with the advent of Lapita.

Keywords

Bismarck ArchipelagoPapua New GuineaNew BritainLapita potterynetworkssocial interactionobsidianmortar and pestle
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 317 , September 2008 , pp. 600 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, J. 1989. Introduction, in Allen, J. & Gosden, C. (ed.) Report of the Lapita Homeland Project (Occasional Papers in Prehistory 20): 1–8. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Allen, J. & White, J. P.. 1989. The Lapita homeland: some new data and interpretations. Journal of the Polynesian Society 98: 129–46.Google Scholar
Ambrose, W., Bird, J. & Duerden, P.. 1981. The impermanence of obsidian sources in Melanesia, in Leach, F. & Davidson, J. (ed.) Archaeologicalstudies of Pacific stone resources (British Archaeological Reports International Series 104): 1–19. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Araho, N., Torrence, R. & White, J. P.. 2002. Valuable and useful: mid-Holocene stemmed obsidian artifacts from West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 68: 61–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, T. 2007. The theatrics of technology: consuming obsidian in the early Cycladic burial arena. Anthropological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 17: 88–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, B. 1995. Arrow designs in Northern and Central New Guinea and the Lapita connection, in Smidt, D., Keurs, P. & Trouwborst, A. (ed.) Pacific material culture: essays in honour of Dr Simon Kooijman: 237–59. Leiden: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde.Google Scholar
Chappell, J. 2005. Geographic changes of coastal lowlands in the Papuan past, in Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. & Hide, R. (ed.) Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples: 289–328. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Diamond, J. & Bellwood, P.. 2003. Farmers and their languages: the first expansions. Science 300: 597–603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fredericksen, C. 2000. Points of discussion: obsidian blade technology in the Admiralty Islands, 2100 BP to 50 BP. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 20: 93–106.Google Scholar
Friede, J. 2005. New Guinea art masterpieces from the Jolika collection of Marcia and John Friede. San Francisco (CA): Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1981. Notes on structure and history in Oceania. Folk 23: 275–95.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1972. Both sides of the Wallace Line: New Guinea, Australia, Island Melanesia and Asian prehistory, in Barnard, N. (ed.) Early Chinese art and its possible influence in the Pacific Basin: 533–96. New York: Intercultural Arts Press.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 2001. New Guinea, Australia and the Sahul connection, in Anderson, A., Lilley, I. & O'Connor, S. (ed.) Histories of old ages: essays in honour of Rhys Jones: 85–210. Canberra: Pandanus Books.Google Scholar
Green, R. 1991. The Lapita cultural complex: current evidence and proposed models. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 11: 295–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, R. 2000. Lapita and the cultural model for intrusion, integration and innovation, in Anderson, A. & Murray, T. (ed.) Australian archaeologist: collected papers in honour of Jim Allen: 372–93. Canberra: Coombs Academic Publishing.Google Scholar
Hyden, B. 1998. Social characteristics of early Austronesian colonizers. Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 4: 123–34.Google Scholar
Kirch, P. 1988. Long-distance exchange and island colonization: the Lapita case. Norwegian Archaeological Review 21: 103–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, P. 1997. The Lapita peoples. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kirch, P. 2000. On the Road of the Winds: an archaeological history of the Pacific Islands before European contact. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kirch, P. 2001. A radiocarbon chronology for the Mussau Islands, in Kirch, P. V. (ed.) Lapita and its transformations in Near Oceania: archaeological investigations in the Mussau Islands, Papua New Guinea, 1985-88 (Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility 59): 196–222. Berkeley (CA): Archaeological Research Facility, University of California.Google Scholar
Mead, M. 1970. The Mountain Arapesh II: arts and supernaturalism. New York: American Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Pavlides, C. 2006. Life before Lapita: new developments in Melanesia's long-term history, in Lilley, I. (ed.) Archaeology of Oceania: Australia andthe Pacific Islands: 205–27. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Petrie, C. & Torrence, R.. In press. Assessing the effects of volcanic disasters on human settlement in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea: a Bayesian approach. Holocene 19 (5).Google Scholar
Riesenfeld, A. 1950. The Megalithic culture of Melanesia. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Rath, P. & Torrence, R.. 2003. Producing value: stemmed tools from Garua Island, Papua New Guinea. Australian Archaeology 57: 119–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Specht, J. 2005. Obsidian stemmed tools in New Britain: aspects of their role and value in mid-Holocene Papua New Guinea, in Macfarlane, I., Paton, R. & Mountain, M. (ed.) Many exchanges: archaeology, history, communityand the work of Isabel McBryde (Aboriginal History Monograph 11): 357–72. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. 1997. The Island Melanesians. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Summerhayes, G. R., Bird, J. R., Fullagar, R., Gosden, C., Specht, J. & Torrence, R.. 1998. Application of PIXE-PIGME to archaeological analysis of changing patterns of obsidian use in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in Shackley, S. (ed.) Archaeologicalobsidian studies: 129–58. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Swadling, P. 1996. Plumes from Paradise: trade cycles in outer Southeast Asia and their impact on New Guinea and nearby islands until 1920. Cooparoo, Australia: National Museum of Papua New Guinea in association with Robert Brown & Associates.Google Scholar
Swadling, P. 2004. Stone mortar and pestle distribution in New Britain revisited, in Attenbrow, V. & Fullagar, R. (ed.) A Pacific Odyssey: archaeology and anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in honour of Jim Specht (Records of the Australian Museum Supplement 29): 157–62. Sydney: Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Swadling, P. 2005. The Huon Gulfand its hinterlands: a long-term view of coastal-highlands interactions, in Gross, C., Lyons, H. & Counts, D. (ed.) A polymath anthropologist: essays in honour of Ann Chowning (Research in Anthropology and Linguistics Monograph 6): 1–14. Auckland: University of Auckland.Google Scholar
Swadling, P. & Hide, R. 2005. Changing landscape and social interaction: looking at agricultural history from a Sepik-Ramu perspective, in Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. & Hide, R. (ed.) Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic andbiological histories of Papuan-speakingpeoples: 289–328. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Swadling, P., Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A.. In press. Prehistoric stone artifacts from Enga and the implications of links between the highlands, lowlands and islands for early agriculture in Papua New Guinea. Journal de la Société des Océanistes.Google Scholar
Torrence, R. 2002. Cultural landscapes on Garua Island, Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 76: 766–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swadling, P., Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A.. 2003. ‘Like everywhere you've never been’: archaeological fables from Papua New Guinea, in Jeske, R. J. & Charles, D. K. (ed.) Theory, methodand practice in modern archaeology: 287–300. Westport (CT): Praeger.Google Scholar
Swadling, P., Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A.. 2004a. Pre-Lapita valuables in Island Melanesia, in Attenbrow, V. & Fullagar, R. (ed.) A Pacific Odyssey: archaeology and anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in honour of Jim Specht (Records of the Australian Museum Supplement 29): 163–72. Sydney: Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Swadling, P., Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A.. 2004b. Now you see it, now you don't: changing obsidian source use in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, in Cherry, J., Scarre, C. & Shennan, S. (ed.) Explaining social change: studies in honour of Colin Renfrew: 115–25. Cambridge: Mc Donald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Swadling, P., Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A.. 2005. Valued stone: how so?, in Macfarlane, I., Paton, R. & Mountain, M. (ed.) Manyexchanges: archaeology, history, communityand the work of Isabel McBryde (Aboriginal History Monograph 11): 357–72. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Torrence, R. & Doelman, T.. 2007. Problems of scale: evaluating the effects of volcanic disasters on cultural change in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, in Grattan, J. & Torrence, R. (ed.) Living under the shadow: cultural impacts of volcanic eruptions: 42–66. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Torrence, R., Pavlides, C., Jackson, P. & Webb, J.. 2000. Volcanic disasters and cultural discontinuities in the Holocene of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in McGuire, B., Griffiths, D. & Stewart, I. (ed.) Archaeologyofgeologicalcatastrophes: 225–44. London: Geological Society of London.Google Scholar
Torrence, R., Swadling, P., Kononenko, N., Ambrose, W., Rath, P. & Glascock, M.. In press. Mid-Holocene social interaction in Melanesia: new evidence from hammer-dressed obsidian stemmed tools. Asian Perspectives.Google Scholar