Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T04:19:13.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Obsidian and volcanic glass artifact evidence for long-distance voyaging to the Polynesian Outlier island of Tikopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2020

Mark D. McCoy Open the ORCID record for Mark D. McCoy [Opens in a new window] ,
Caroline Cervera ,
Mara A. Mulrooney ,
Andrew McAlister  and
Patrick V. Kirch
Mark D. McCoy*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas75275, USA
Caroline Cervera
Affiliation:
College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts02115, USA
Mara A. Mulrooney
Affiliation:
Pacific Legacy, Inc., Kailua, Hawaii96734, USA
Andrew McAlister
Affiliation:
Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland1142, New Zealand
Patrick V. Kirch
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii96822, USA
*
*Corresponding author e-mail address: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reconstructing routes of ancient long-distance voyaging, long a topic of speculation, has become possible thanks to advances in the geochemical sourcing of archaeological artifacts. Of particular interest are islands classified as Polynesian Outliers, where people speak Polynesian languages and have distinctly Polynesian cultural traits, but are located within the Melanesian or Micronesian cultural areas. While the classification of these groups as Polynesian is not in dispute, the material evidence for the movement between Polynesia and the Polynesian Outliers is exceedingly rare, unconfirmed, and in most cases, nonexistent. We report on the first comprehensive sourcing (using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer) of obsidian and volcanic glass artifacts recovered from excavations on the Polynesian Outlier island of Tikopia. We find evidence for: (1) initial settlement followed by continued voyages between Tikopia and an island Melanesian homeland; (2) long-distance voyaging becoming much less frequent and continuing to decline; and (3) later voyaging from Polynesia marked by imports of volcanic glass from Tonga beginning at 765 cal yr BP (±54 yr). Later long-distance voyages from Polynesia were surprisingly rare, given the strong cultural and linguistic influences of Polynesia, and we suggest, may indicate that Tikopia was targeted by Tongans for political expansion.

Keywords

Long-distance voyagingArchaeologypXRFObsidianVolcanic glassTikopiaTongaPolynesia
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 98 , November 2020 , pp. 49 - 57
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2020

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

REFERENCES

Bedford, S., Spriggs, M., and Regenvanu, R., 2006. The Teouma Lapita Site and the early human settlement of the Pacific Islands. Antiquity 80, 812–828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, R., Torrence, R., Summerhayes, G.R., Bailey, G., 1997. New Britain obsidian sources. Archaeology in Oceania 32, 61–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burley, D., Edinborough, K., Weisler, M., Zhao, J.-x., 2015. Bayesian modeling and chronological precision for Polynesian settlement of Tonga. PLoS ONE 10, e0120795.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burley, D.V., 2013. Fijian Polygenesis and the Melanesian/Polynesian divide. Current Anthropology 54, 436–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burley, D.V., Sheppard, P.J., Simonin, M., 2011. Tongan and Sāmoan volcanic glass: pXRF analysis and implications for constructs of ancestral Polynesian society. Journal of Archaeological Science 38, 2625–2632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burley, D., Weisler, M., Zhao, J.-x., 2012. High precision U/Th dating of first Polynesian settlement. PLoS ONE 7, e23144962.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, G.R., Reepmeyer, C., Melekiola, N., Woodhead, J., Dickinson, W.R., Martinsson-Wallin, H., 2014. Stone tools from the ancient Tongan state reveal prehistoric interaction centers in the Central Pacific. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111, 10491–10496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, J.T., Wright, E., 1995. Volcanic glass in Samoa: a technological and geochemical study. Journal of the Polynesian Society 104, 239–266.Google Scholar
Constantine, A., Reepmeyer, C., Bedford, S., Spriggs, M. Ravn, M., 2015. Obsidian distribution from a Lapita cemetery. Archaeology in Oceania 50, 111–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, J.M., 2012. Intrusion, integration and innovation on small and not-so-small islands with particular reference to Sāmoa. Archaeology in Oceania 47, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, R., 1998. Oral Traditions of Anuta: A Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon Islands. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Firth, R., 1936. We the Tikopia: A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polynesia. George Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Firth, R., 1961. History and Traditions of Tikopia. Polynesian Society, Wellington, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Gaffney, D., Summerhayes, G.R., 2019. Coastal mobility and lithic supply lines in northeast New Guinea. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, 2849–2878.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golitko, M., Schauer, M., Terrell, J.E., 2012. Identification of Fergusson Island obsidian on the Sepik coast of northern Papua New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania 47, 151–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, R.C., 1979. Lapita. In: Jennings, J. (Ed.), The Prehistory of Polynesia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 27–60.Google Scholar
Green, R.C., 1987. Obsidian results from the Lapita sites of the Reef/Santa Cruz Islands. In: Ambrose, W.R., Mummery, J.M.J. (Eds.), Archaeometry: Further Australasian Studies. Australian National University, Canberra, pp. 239–249.Google Scholar
Green, R.C., Bird, J.R., 1989. Fergusson Island obsidian from the D'Entrecasteaux Group in a Lapita site of the Reef Santa Cruz Group. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology 11, 87–99.Google Scholar
Hermann, A., Forkel, R., McAlister, A., Cruickshank, A., Golitko, M., Kneebone, B., McCoy, M.D., Reepmeyer, C., Sheppard, P., Sinton, J., Weisler, M., 2020. Pofatu, a curated and open-access database for geochemical sourcing of archaeological materials. Scientific Data 7, 141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horsburgh, K.A., McCoy, M.D., 2017. Dispersal, isolation, and interaction in the islands of Polynesia: a critical review of archaeological and genetic evidence. Diversity 9. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/d9030037.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, P.V., 2017. On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. 2nd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, P.V., 2018. Voice on the wind, traces in the earth: integrating oral narrative and archaeology in Polynesian history. Journal of the Polynesian Society 127, 275–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, P.V., Swift, J.A., 2017. New AMS radiocarbon dates and a re-evaluation of the cultural sequence of Tikopia Island, Southeast Solomon Islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society 126, 313–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirch, P.V., Yen, D.E., 1982. Tikopia: The Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier. B.P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 238. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu.Google Scholar
McAlister, A., 2019. On provenance studies of New Zealand obsidians: a pXRF-based geochemical reference dataset and a review of analytical methods. Archaeology in Oceania 54, 131–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCoy, M.D., Carpenter, J., 2014. Strategies for obtaining obsidian in pre-European contact era New Zealand. PLoS ONE 9, e84302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mulrooney, M., Torrence, R. McAlister, A., 2016. The demise of a monopoly: implications of geochemical characterisation of a stemmed obsidian tool from the Bishop Museum collections. Archaeology in Oceania 51, 62–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, P., 2007. Echoes from a distance: research into the Lapita occupation of the Rove Peninsula. In: Bedford, S., Sand, C., Connaughton, S. (Eds.), Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement. Australian National University Press, Canberra, pp. 163–176.Google Scholar
Petchey, F., Kirch, P.V., 2019. The importance of shell: redating of the To'aga site (Ofu Island, Manu'a) and a revised chronology for the Lapita to Polynesian Plainware transition in Tonga and Sāmoa. PLoS ONE 14, e0211990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reepmeyer, C., 2008. Characterising volcanic glass sources in the Banks Islands, Vanuatu. Archaeology in Oceania 43, 120–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reepmeyer, C., 2009. The Obsidian Sources and Distribution Systems Emanating from Gaua and Vanua Lava in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra.Google Scholar
Sheppard, P.J., Trichereau, B., Milicich, C., 2010. Pacific obsidian sourcing by portable XRF. Archaeology in Oceania 45, 21–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spriggs, M., Bird, R., Ambrose, W., 2010. A reanalysis of the Tikopia obsidians. Archaeology in Oceania 45, 31–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summerhayes, G.R., 2009. Obsidian network patterns in Melanesia—sources, characterisation and distribution. IPPA Bulletin 29, 109–123.Google Scholar
Walter, R., Jacomb, C., Bowron-Muth, S., 2010. Colonisation, mobility, and exchange in New Zealand prehistory. Antiquity 84, 497–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

McCoy et al. supplementary material

McCoy et al. supplementary material 2

Download McCoy et al. supplementary material(File)
File 81.9 KB
Supplementary material: File

McCoy et al. supplementary material

McCoy et al. supplementary material 1

Download McCoy et al. supplementary material(File)
File 545 KB