Featured Title:
Pictures from the Past: Art and Symbols of the Neolithic and Bronze Age |
 |
| Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 98 guests and 2 members online.
You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here |
| |
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> Artifacts and Discoveries in the South Pacific Region
|
 |
| Author |
Artifacts and Discoveries in the South Pacific Region |
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1331
from South Central Indiana, US
 OFF-Line
|  Posted 03-01-2012 at 04:33
Lapita find opens new chapter of Pacific history
A huge treasure trove of artefacts including thousands of fragments of pottery provides the first evidence that the sea-faring Lapita people settled in mainland Papua New Guinea.
The discovery, by a group of archaeologists from Australia and Papua New Guinea led by Dr Bruno David and Professor Ian McNiven from Monash University, is to be presented this weekend at the Australian Archaeological Association Conference in Toowoomba.
The Lapita culture developed on islands off the east coast of Papua New Guinea around 3500 years ago. Approximately three hundred years later the Lapita people started heading east to become the first humans to settle the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, moving later to Samoa and Tonga.
Evidence of their settlement is found in the remains of intricately patterned pottery used for rituals. But while fragments of the pottery had been found on mainland Papua New Guinea, archaeologists believed the Lapita people never settled in this area.
"We thought that these were an island people only, there was no evidence of these people going onto the PNG mainland at all until we had our findings near Port Moresby," says McNiven.
Between 2009 and 2010 McNiven's teams of archaeologists and local community members excavated several sites at Caution Bay, north-west of Port Moresby..
"When we dug deeper down between 1 and 2 metres below the surface we found evidence of Lapita people and lots of it," says McNiven.
This suggests the Lapita community was very well established, not just passing traders, he says. Covered under 110 tonnes of sediment lay food remains — shells, fish bones and turtle bones — that indicated the marine-loving people lived in several villages that extend one square kilometre inland.
The excavations also revealed a wealth of implements — stone tools, cutting tools and stone axes made out of volcanic rock — as well as Lapita pottery fragments. The largest site, known as Bogi 1, contained thousands of fragments of pottery.
McNiven says extensive radiocarbon dating on the site indicates the material is between 2500 and 2900 years old.
Professor Glenn Summerhayes from the University of Otago is an expert in Lapita archaeology. Summerhayes, who was not involved in the project, says some of the pottery is definitely Lapita.
"The pottery we're looking at is a later form of Lapita. [Early Lapita] is quite intricate ... over time the pottery becomes a bit more simplified," explains Summerhayes. "Not all of [the pottery found] looks like new Lapita, but some of it does, which suggests to me that we are witnessing another expansion along the south coast that we had not imagined."
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more and photographs, see ABC Science and Journal of Pacific Archaeology.
For more about the Lapita, see these Megalithic Portal articles: Foa Island and Teouma.
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2012-01-03 04:34 ]
 Profile
 Reply
| |
|
|
|
|
|
IMPORTANT NOTES: This site uses COOKIES. Please do not use this web site if you do not agree to our Terms and Conditions of use.
If you plan to visit ancient sites in person, please make sure you follow our Charter.
Articles, photographs and comments are the property of their respective authors or contributors, please contact them for permission to reproduce. Site design ©1997-2012 Andy Burnham.
|
Main News