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<< Other Photo Pages >> House of Taga - Sculptured Stone in Pacific Islands

Submitted by bat400 on Thursday, 28 November 2013  Page Views: 7341

Multi-periodSite Name: House of Taga
Country: Pacific Islands
NOTE: This site is 155.102 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Sculptured Stone
 Nearest Village: San Jose, Tinian
Latitude: 14.967000N  Longitude: 145.621900E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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House of Taga
House of Taga submitted by bat400 : Site on Tinian, Northern Marianas Islands. Tinian latte stone at Taga House. Photo by CT Snow from Hsinchu, Taiwan, 21 August 2002. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Sculptured Stone in Northern Marianas.
A group of twelve 15 foot high latte stones, attributed to feat of personal strength of a legendary/mythological Chief Taga.

Only one remains intact and standing. The first recorded sketch of the stones (showing them upright) was made by a crew member of Anson's 1742 visit to Tinian. The stones have been sourced to a quarry less than a mile from the site.
Archaeological excavation indicate occupation of the site much earlier than the construction of the House of Taga latte, with pottery, stone tools and food debris dating to 1500 BC.
Latte stones are quarried or found cylindrical or slab bases with a separate semi-hemispherical coral or stone top. They ranged in size from a meter to a little over 5 meters tall, with the ones at the House of Taga being among the largest known. They are almost always found in pairs. This supports oral tradition at the time that the islanders encountered Europeans indicating that the flat topped latte were used as the foundations of wooden and thatch houses, but they were no longer being used for this building purpose by the 18th C. Latte also served as a gathering place, and as the focus of burials.

Although the earliest latte were created around 1500AD, the form was rapidly abandoned as the first Europeans reached the Pacific. Latte (or ladte) are found throughout the Marianas Islands and are considered to be part of the prehistoric Chamorro culture. Today the stones are considered part of modern Chamorro identity and appear on the Northern Marianas Islands' flag, and modern concrete versions are used as decorative elements in modern buildings.

National Register of Historic Places, #74002193.

Note: Archaeologist says migration to Marianas longest ocean-crossing in human history. See comments.
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House of Taga
House of Taga submitted by bat400 : Site on Tinian, Northern Marianas. Source for this image is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Latte_stones_2.jpg) with This file being in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of no more than the life of the author plus 100 years. It is assumed to be made after a sketch made by a member of the Anson crew who ... (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Flickr
Tinian Island
Tinian Island
Tinian - San Jose Church Bell Tower
Tinian Island
Tinian Island
Tinian - House of Taga

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"House of Taga" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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From the Philippines to the Marianas: Pottery and early settlements by bat400 on Thursday, 28 November 2013
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THE discovery of similar red-slipped pottery with dentate stamping, among other artifacts from Cagayan, Northern Philippines and the Marianas lends credence to the theory of direct settlement of the Marianas from the Northern Philippines.

Dr. Mike T. Carson and his wife Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung, of Australia National University, have been conducting archaeological work on Tinian as they look into early human settlements in the Marianas. Dr. Hung, who has been studying human settlements in Asia and the Pacific islands, began her work in the northern Philippines as early as 1995 while she was pursuing her master’s degree.

She noted that in the Philippines the pottery dates back to 4,000 years ago.
“Around 4000 years ago, they started using pottery, the same type we found in the Marianas,” said Dr. Hung referring to the northern Philippines sites where they unearthed potsherds, among other artifacts.

Dr. Hung told Variety that she also studied pottery and tools from Japan and Taiwan, but none of these samples are similar to those found in the Marianas.
Dr. Carson explains further. He said they found it interesting how early the Marianas were settled. By dating the archeological sites, Dr. Carson said they traced the movements of people from Asia to the Pacific, beginning with China, then Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Pacific.

Dr. Carson said it was in Taiwan — the first time outside the Asian continent — where they saw a type of pottery with a distinctive style. They also found an archaeological site that indicated people had been living in long-term settlements.
But at archeological sites in the Northern Philippines, specifically in Cagayan, in the Marianas and in the Lapita region, they found more similar pottery styles.

He pointed out that the “shared pottery style doesn’t happen by accident. People are reproducing the same style.”
This was what attracted their attention.

Dr. Carson said that through radiocarbon dating, they determined the Philippine pottery was the oldest at 4,000 years. “In the Marianas, it dates back to about 3,500 years while Lapita in Melanesia, it is slightly later.”

“They have the same styles maintained over hundreds of years,” said Dr. Carson.

In an article published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Dr. Carson, Dr. Hung, Dr. Glenn Summerhayes and Dr. Peter Bellwood stated that the three major techniques of point-impression, rows of circles, and fine-line incision are found in the Philippines, Marianas and earliest Lapita assemblages.

Examples of rare paddle impressions, the archaeologists said, in which vessel exteriors were impressed by using carved paddles, “are extremely few in the Philippines and the Marianas.”

The Carson couple has been conducting extensive work at a site north of the House of Taga on Tinian which has yielded more than 30,000 potsherds and human remains.

“The excavation near House of Taga was even more productive than we originally had expected. During the last few weeks, we have been making steady progress with the data-analysis. Dr Hung and I are working on several aspects, so far with encouraging results,” Dr. Carson told Variety.

Dr. Carson and Dr. Hung were able to expose “the living surface of one of the very first habitation sites in the Mariana Islands, slightly inland from today’s House of Taga.”
“This location was right on the old seashore about 3500 years ago. We found the remains of old house structures, cooking areas, and concentrations of different types of artifacts that help us to reconstruct what people were doing at the site,” he said.

For Dr. Carson, their latest work on Tinian which they concluded in March 2013 gave them a clear picture of what life was like in the Marianas 3,500 years ago “when people lived for the first time on the remote and small islands of the Pacific.”

Dr. Carson said what drew their attention was the oldest decorated pott

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Archaeologist says migration to Marianas longest ocean-crossing in human history by bat400 on Thursday, 28 November 2013
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THE establishment of human settlements in the Marianas 3,500 years ago required long-distance migration and may perhaps have involved the longest ocean-crossing in human history.

Dr. Michael T. Carson and Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung from Australian National University in Canberra continue to make progress with their archaeological study north of the House of Taga on Tinian as they examine what may be the earliest human habitation in the region.

Carson told Variety that previously, archaeologists concluded that the first remote-distance island settlement occurred in Melanesia and Polynesia about 3000-2800 years ago.
“Now we have found solid evidence of a significantly earlier settlement in the Marianas, plus it required an even longer distance of migration across the ocean, more than 2000 km from the nearest inhabited area,” said Carson.

For Carson, “That constituted the longest ocean-crossing in human history of its time 3500 years ago.”

The area north of the House of Tage on Tinian where Carson and Hung are currently working was the site where Fr. Marcian Pellette uncovered finely decorated pottery — the earliest pottery of the Marianas — in the 1950s.
Following Fr. Pellete’s lead, Carson and Hung returned to the site in Dec. 2011 where they initially uncovered human remains in six burial sites. This month, the couple found some more partial human remains in five burial sites.

Carson said, “The only burial features were in the upper layer of the site, associated with the latte sets of this area, dated approximately in the range of 1,000 through 300 years ago. All of the bones are staying in Tinian for respectful re-burial as soon as possible.”

He said that in the lower and older layers at the site, “We found abundant artifacts and midden, as well as remains of house structures.”

Carson said that the primary goal of their research is to learn about the most ancient habitation layer, dated nearly 3,500 years ago.
“We continue to uncover this lowest layer of the site, so we do not yet know all of the final details. So far, though, we are seeing a good picture of the shape of an ancient house floor and living area, composed of cobbles and boulders arranged as paving. Some of the cobbles and boulders were positioned in circular patterns as bracings for house-posts. We are finding concentrations of plentiful broken pieces of pottery, shell and stone tools, shell ornaments, and discarded food remains,” Carson told Variety.

The project is significant, Carson said, for learning about the first people who lived in these islands.
“At that time, 3,500 years ago, no other people were living in the remote Pacific Islands, so these ancient sites in the Mariana Islands give us valuable information about this critical point in human history. Other sites in Tinian, Saipan, and Guam all confirm this early dating and much the same intriguing early artifacts, including a distinctive red-slipped pottery with finely made decorations.”

The Carson couple sees a pottery trail extending from the Philippines to the Marianas. “Based on what we know so far in these different regions, we can trace a ‘pottery trail’ from Island Southeast Asia into the Pacific.”

“The oldest in the remote Pacific Islands, however, was in the Marianas about 3500 years ago,” added Carson.

He explained to Variety that in the decorated pottery of both the Philippines and the Marianas, there were many of the same design motifs shared at the same time 3,500 years ago.

Carson said that the decorative style appeared in the Philippines at least 3,800 years ago or perhaps earlier and this style appeared for the first time in the Marianas 3,500 years ago.
He told Variety that they are just beginning to learn about these connections.

Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see Read the rest of this post...
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Archeologist uncovers ancient pottery by bat400 on Thursday, 28 November 2013
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A former University of Guam archaeologist has uncovered 3,500-year-old pottery and artifacts in Tinian, a find that could add to theories about how people first came to Micronesia.

Mike Carson, a lecturer at Australian National University, and his wife, Hsiao-Chun Hung, discovered the artifacts at the Taga historical site in early December, according to the Richard F. Taitano Micronesia Area Research Center Archaeological Laboratory at UOG.

The House of Taga, most notable for a set of large, latte stone pillars, has been the site of previous excavations in the mid-20th century. Carson took the digging deeper and discovered a treasure trove of Marianas redware pottery. Carson couldn't be reached for this article, but John Peterson, a UOG archaeologist, confirmed the find. Marianas redware is thin-walled pottery with a characteristic red hue and distinct geometric patterns, Peterson, said. While a little bit of this type of pottery has been found in the Marianas before, including at the House of Taga site, the recent find adds a significant amount to the collection.

As the theory goes, about 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, sea levels around Asia began to drop, Peterson said.
Coastal Asian people, those around the south coast of China, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, were sea-faring and nomadic, so when the sea level started dropping, people had to travel further to find necessities, historians have said. The changes could have wiped out mangrove habitats, a food source for the nomads, so they started making wider migrations, eventually ending up in the Marianas, Peterson said.

While the notion of trekking days on end in handcrafted boats seems foreign to us now, it was common practice for these ancient men and women, Peterson said. They could pick up a coconut on a beach and guess how far it had traveled just by the condition it was in.

Based on linguistic studies and excavations, experts believe that it's likely there were multiple migrations to the Marianas from the Philippines over thousands of years, said Don Farrell, an author and historian who lives on Tinian. The people developed a common language and culture that became Chamorro culture.

"We're gradually learning this was a very extensive network of settlement," Peterson said.

Carson and Hung also discovered post holes for stilt houses and fireplaces at House of Taga, said Peterson. This suggests people might have actually been staying long-term in the Marianas earlier than historians previously thought.

From January 2012 Guam Pacific Daily News. Go there for the full article.
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