Lapita pottery has long been held as the key to Polynesian Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians, and share many similar traits including language family, culture, and beliefs. Hi…Polynesia
Where did Lapita pottery come from?
A human face stares from these remnants of Lapita pottery, dated 1000 BC. They come from the Santa Cruz group of islands, south-east of the Solomon Islands. Around 3000 BC ceramic-making peoples appeared in Taiwan.
What is Lapita culture?
The term Lapita refers to an ancient Pacific culture that archaeologists believe to be the common ancestor of the contemporary cultures of Polynesia, Micronesia, and some areas of Melanesia.
Where did the Lapita get their terracotta?
Terracotta fragments, Lapita people. Pieces of the distinctive red-slipped pottery of the Lapita people have been recovered from sites spanning thousands of miles across the Pacific from the outer reaches of Southeast Asia, through the island groups often referred to as Micronesia and Melanesia, and into the central Pacific and Polynesia.
What kind of artifacts did the Lapita tribe make?
A few shards with figurative designs have also been found. Lapita pottery has been found from New Guinea eastward to Samoa. Fishhooks, pieces of obsidian and chert flakes, and beads and rings made of shells are the other principal artifacts of the Lapita culture.
What is Lapita pottery and why is it important?
Lapita art is best known for its ceramics, which feature intricate repeating geometric patterns that occasionally include anthropomorphic faces and figures. The patterns were incised into the pots before firing with a comblike tool used to stamp designs into the wet clay.
Why is Lapita pottery important to Samoan culture?
Lapita in Polynesia Many scientists believe Lapita pottery in Melanesia to be proof that Polynesian ancestors passed through this area on their way into the central Pacific.
What is the significance of Lapita pottery evidence in the study of PNG?
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.
When was Lapita pottery discovered?
Recent archaeological research in the Ha'apai Group of central Tonga (4) indicates initial colonization by people making Lapita ceramics between 850 B.C.E. and 800 B.C.E.
Who created Lapita pottery?
style of pottery known as Lapita ware. That pottery is generally associated with peoples who had well-developed skills in navigation and canoe building and were horticulturists. From Fiji the Lapita culture was carried to Tonga and Samoa, where the first distinctively Polynesian cultures evolved.
Where was Lapita pottery not found?
Lapita pottery is common on most Melanesian islands and is often found associated with Melanesian deposits, but is not found amongst any Eastern Polynesian archaeological deposits in Hawai'i, Rapa Nui, Aoteoroa, Tahiti, Tuamotus, Raiatea, Raivavae or Rarotonga or any other Eastern Polynesian Islands.
Where do Lapita people come from?
Around 1500 BCE a culture known as Lapita (ancestors of the Polynesians, including Māori) appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago in Near Oceania. Recent DNA analysis suggests that they originally came from Island South-East Asia, and that there was some interbreeding with people already living in the Bismarcks.
Where are the Lapita people now?
"Now that we've got the DNA of the ancient Lapita people, the big shock is that they are really like [Aboriginal] people from Taiwan," Professor Spriggs said. Today, all south Pacific Islanders have a heritage that includes DNA from both a Papuan and an East Asian population to varying degrees.
What was the Lapita culture and how did they sail?
Experts believe that the Lapita people are the ancestors of people from Polynesia, Micronesia, and some coastal areas of Melanesia. The Lapita were the first to reach Remote Oceania. Between 1200 and 1000 BC they spread to West Polynesia (including Tonga and Samoa) on single-hulled outrigger canoes.
Why are they called Lapita people?
Lapita culture, cultural complex of what were presumably the original human settlers of Melanesia, much of Polynesia, and parts of Micronesia, and dating between 1600 and 500 bce. It is named for a type of fired pottery that was first extensively investigated at the site of Lapita in New Caledonia.
What culture produced early pottery?
The first examples of pottery appeared in Eastern Asia several thousand years later. In the Xianrendong cave in China, fragments of pots dated to 18,000-17,000 BCE have been found.
How did the Lapita people travel?
Thousands of years ago, ancestors of the Polynesians, the Lapita, explored and colonized the islands of the Pacific Ocean in simple canoes known as waka.
How is art used in Polynesian culture?
Polynesian arts visually express the values and organization of life, belief, power, and knowledge within the region. The pieces in this lesson relate to three major themes: the paired concepts of mana and tapu, community and prestige, and genealogy, concepts that govern the aesthetic structures and use of objects.
Who were the Lapita people and why they were called Lapita people?
The Lapita people were originally from Taiwan and other regions of East Asia. They were highly mobile seaborne explorers and colonists who had established themselves on the Bismarck Archipelago (northeast of New Guinea) by 2000 bce.
What culture produced early pottery?
The first examples of pottery appeared in Eastern Asia several thousand years later. In the Xianrendong cave in China, fragments of pots dated to 18,000-17,000 BCE have been found.
Which work best represents Polynesian art?
The most famous Polynesian art forms are the Moai (statues) of Rapa Nui/Easter Island. Polynesian art is characteristically ornate, and often meant to contain supernatural power or mana.
What is the Lapita pottery?from britannica.com
The Lapita people are known principally on the basis of the remains of their fired pottery, which consists of beakers, cooking pots, and bowls. Many of the pottery shards that have been found are decorated with geometric designs made by stamping the unfired clay with a toothlike implement.
What language did the Lapita speak?from en.wikipedia.org
Linguists and other researchers theorize that the people of the Lapita cultural complex spoke a proto-Oceanic language that contributed to languages in the Austronesian language group spoken in Oceania today. However, the particular language or languages spoken by the Lapita is unknown. The languages spoken in the region today derive from a number of different ancient languages, and material culture uncovered by archaeology does not generally provide clues to the language spoken by the makers of the artifacts.
What are the elements of Lapita culture?from en.wikipedia.org
These include pottery, crops, paddy field agriculture, domesticated animals (chickens, dogs, and pigs), rectangular stilt houses, tattoo chisels, quadrangular adzes, polished stone chisels, outrigger boat technology, trolling hooks, and various other stone artifacts. Lapita pottery offers the strongest evidence of an Austronesian origin. It has very distinctive elements, like the use of the red slips, tiny punch marks, dentate stamps, circle stamps, and a cross-in-circle motif. Similar pottery has been found in Taiwan, the Batanes and Luzon islands of the Philippines, and the Marianas.
What is the common ancestry of Lapita people?from en.wikipedia.org
Recent DNA studies show that the Lapita people and modern Polynesians have a common ancestry with the Atayal people of Taiwan and the Kankanaey people of the northern Philippines.
Where did the Lapita culture originate?from britannica.com
From Fiji the Lapita culturewas carried to Tonga and Samoa, where the first distinctively Polynesian cultures evolved. Archaeological evidence suggests that two other pottery styles were subsequently introduced into Fiji, though it is not clear whether they represent major migrations or simply cultural innovations brought by small…
Where is Jack Golson's Lapita pottery found?from en.wikipedia.org
See also: Archaeology in Samoa. Lapita pottery has been found in Near Oceania as well as Remote Oceania, as far west as the Bismarck Archipelago, as far east as Samoa, and as far south as New Caledonia.
Where were Lapita villages located?from en.wikipedia.org
Settlements. Lapita culture villages on islands in the area of Remote Oceania tended not to be located inland, but instead on the beach, or on small offshore islets. These locations may have been chosen because inland areas - for example in New Guinea - were already settled by other peoples.
A Complete Guide to Lapita Pottery
Art speaks where words are unable to explain. These are the words of Pam Holland, which means that art is a form of expression which carries a message, or history. Lapita pottery is a form of pottery whose discovery has shed more light on the people and culture around its making and existence.
History and Origin of Lapita Pottery
Lapita pottery originated from the Lapita culture in the Western Pacific, New Caledonia. Ceramics from Lapita are particularly well-known, with elaborate looping geometric designs that occasionally include human-like faces and figures.
Where Lapita Pottery was first located
As gotten from Lapita Pottery & Polynesians, “Elouae in the St Matthias Group, north of New Ireland, has the earliest Lapita pottery discovered to date. A solitary hearth feature connected with Lapita materials gives the dating of 1900 BC (3,900 years ago).
Lapita Pottery Designs
Lapita art is notorious for its ceramics, which contain elaborate repeating geometric patterns with anthropomorphic faces and figures thrown in for good measure. With a comb-like piece of equipment used to stamp designs into wet clay, the patterns were carved into the pots before the fire.
How was Lapita Pottery made?
Local clay was used to make Lapita pottery, which was tempered using calcium-rich sand, mud, and shredded seashells. The vessel wall would be formed by attaching this mixture to thin clay slabs and shaping it with sticks and stones.
Conclusion
Lapita pottery has long been out of production, as the period and time of the pioneers of this art has passed. Gone with them, is the original expertise and knowledge about this art form, which is influenced by the culture and beliefs of the people in that period.
What is Lapita art?from metmuseum.org
Lapita art is best known for its ceramics, which feature intricate repeating geometric patterns that occasionally include anthropomorphic faces and figures. The patterns were incised into the pots before firing with a comblike tool used to stamp designs into the wet clay. Each stamp consisted of a single design element that was combined ...
Where did Lapita get its name?from metmuseum.org
The culture takes its name from the site of Lapita in New Caledonia, one of the first places in which its distinctive pottery was discovered.
Where are Lapita pottery found?
Archaeological sites containing Lapita pottery have been identified on all island groups in the Kingdom of Tonga and currently number over 30 sites (Burley, 2001). Most of the known sites that have been excavated are in the Ha'apai Group and are an intrinsic component of the Ha'apai cultural landscape. The archaeological deposits containing Lapita ceramics are similar in their range of artefactual material and in their locations, almost all located on or adjacent to a beach and commonly on small islands. The decorated ceramics found in these sites have a characteristic style of decoration known as ‘Lapita' (after the site at which these ceramics were first recorded, the Lapita site on New Caledonia) and also contain a range of artifacts manufactured from shell and stone, plain pottery and faunal remains.
Why are Lapita sites important?
Lapita sites are of international significance for the story they tell of the human colonization of the last major region of the world, and the navigational and seafaring skills this required to successful reach and settle on the Islands of Remote Oceania, that is, those islands to the south and east of the Solomon Islands. The successful colonisation of this region depended on very detailed knowledge and understanding of the Oceanic environment, the natural resources of the land and sea and a knowledge of horticulture and arboriculture that enables these early colonizers to transport their food resources from island Melanesia to the island of West Polynesia creating the landscapes of the Pacific that we see today.
When did Lapita pottery come to the Pacific?
Sites containing Lapita pottery are also found in the Bismarck Archipelago (PNG), Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa and collectively these sites reflect major social and cultural changes in the Western Pacific around 3000 years ago , possibly associated with the spread of Austronesian speaking people from Island southeast Asia that resulted in the movement of the makers of Lapita pottery out of Island Melanesia into Remote Oceania being the initial human colonization of the region.
Where are Lapita sites?
As discussed above, Lapita sites are found across the Western Pacific and collectively tell the story of a major episode of human colonization and the first colonization of the Oceanic world, a story of great regional and international significance and clearly of outstanding universal value. Collectively the archaeological sites containing Lapita ceramics and other important very important archaeological material create a pattern that tells this story through their locations, being found from Papua New Guinea to Samoa.
What is Ha'apai culture?
Ha'apai sites are an intrinsic component of the cultural landscapes of Tonga and reflect the sophisticated adaptation of the first colonizers of the Kingdom and the region as a whole to this truly oceanic environment of small coral islands.
What is the Lapita pottery?
The Lapita people are known principally on the basis of the remains of their fired pottery, which consists of beakers, cooking pots, and bowls. Many of the pottery shards that have been found are decorated with geometric designs made by stamping the unfired clay with a toothlike implement.
Where is Lapita pottery found?
A few shards with figurative designs have also been found. Lapita pottery has been found from New Guinea eastward to Samoa. Fishhooks, pieces of obsidian and chert flakes, and beads and rings made of shells are the other principal artifacts of the Lapita culture. Lapita pottery.
Where did the Lapita culture originate?
From Fiji the Lapita culturewas carried to Tonga and Samoa, where the first distinctively Polynesian cultures evolved. Archaeological evidence suggests that two other pottery styles were subsequently introduced into Fiji, though it is not clear whether they represent major migrations or simply cultural innovations brought by small…
Where did the Lapita people come from?
The Lapita people were originally from Taiwan and other regions of East Asia. They were highly mobile seaborne explorers and colonists who had established themselves on the Bismarck Archipelago (northeast of New Guinea) by 2000 bce.
What is the Melanesia culture?
Melanesian culture: Traditional Melanesia. …shell ornaments that define the Lapita culture. They spoke an Austronesian language related to languages of the Philippines and Indonesia and ancestral to many of the languages of coastal eastern New Guinea; much of the Bismarck Archipelago; the Solomons, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia;
What is the motif of Lapita pottery?
One often-repeated motif in Lapita pottery is what appears to be stylized eyes and nose of a human or animal face. The pottery is built, not wheel thrown, and low-temperature fired.
What is Lapita pottery made of?
Lapita pottery consists of mostly plain, red-slipped, coral sand-tempered wares; but a small percentage are ornately decorated, with intricate geometric designs incised or stamped onto the surface with a fine-toothed dentate stamp, perhaps made of turtle or clamshell.
Where did the Lapita culture originate?
Updated May 23, 2019. The Lapita culture is the name given to the artifactual remains associated with the people who settled the area east of the Solomon Islands called Remote Oceania between 3400 and 2900 years ago. The earliest Lapita sites are located in the Bismarck islands, and within 400 years of their founding, ...
What is the practice of tattooing?
Tattooing. The practice of tattooing has been reported in ethnographic and historical records throughout the Pacific, by one of two methods: cutting and piercing. In some cases, a series of very small cuts is made to create a line, and then pigment was rubbed into the open wound.
Why are Lapita pottery pieces so important?
Archaeologists get very excited when they find pieces of Lapita pottery. Why? Because the sequential depositing of potsherds (fragments of pottery) in an easterly direction across the island groups of the Pacific has become the pivotal evidence that tells the extraordinary story of the peopling of the vast Pacific Ocean. Pieces of the distinctive red-slipped pottery of the Lapita people have been recovered from sites spanning thousands of miles across the Pacific from the outer reaches of Southeast Asia, through the island groups often referred to as Micronesia and Melanesia, and into the central Pacific and Polynesia.
What is Lapita pottery?
Lapita pottery was shaped by hand, and perhaps using a paddle-and-anvil technique to thin the walls, but without the aid of a potter’s wheel. It is low-fire earthenware (no evidence of Lapita kilns have been found). This means that the dry clay pots would likely have been placed in open fires to harden—the descendants of the Lapita people in Fiji and other areas still make pottery in this way. There is some geographical variation in the shapes and sizes of the pottery but most were simple bowls, some had pedestal feet, and others were flat-bottomed vessels. We know that the pottery was generally not used for cooking because carbon residues are not normally found on the potsherds. Rather, the evidence suggests that much of the pottery was used for serving food, while larger vessels were likely used for storage.
What is the Lapita design system?
A major breakthrough in the analysis of the Lapita design system came in the 1970s when Māori archaeologist Sydney Moko Mead developed a coherent formal system to categorize the design elements and motifs found on Lapita pottery. Mead’s system drew inspiration from linguistic analysis and has a set of components that form the building blocks of the “grammar” of the Lapita design system. These include: design elements, motifs, zone markers, and design fields. Even though the design system changed incrementally through time and within specific geographical areas as people moved across the Pacific, the underlying structural patterns and rules of the system remained the same. From an analytical point of view, the systemized grammar of design has meant that potsherds found in one site can be categorized and compared with others found in multiple other sites to provide evidence of the movement of the Lapita people in particular timeframes. What’s more, vestiges of the design motifs and the grammar of the system are apparent in contemporary tattooing, barkcloth decoration and other art forms throughout contemporary Remote Oceania (image above).
Why was sand used in Lapita pottery?
The makers of the Lapita pottery blended clay with a particular type of sand. The sand was needed as a temper to make the vessels more durable during firing.
Where did the Lapita people come from?
The new arrivals, who we now know as the Lapita people (named for the beach on the island of New Caledonia where a large number of pottery sherds were found), spoke a different language than the people they would have encountered there. These local people had been living on the large island now known as New Guinea and the surrounding islands for between 60,000 and 40,000 years.2 Aside from their language and different genetic stock, the Lapita were different to those they encountered because they had sophisticated seafaring and navigation capability—and they manufactured and decorated ceramics in very particular ways. We can only theorize about the political and environmental pressures that drove these people to set out to sea in search of new places to live. Nevertheless, the pieces of broken but stylistically related potsherds distributed across thousands of miles of islands, laid down in datable stratigraphic layers, have revealed important information about the ancestors of the contemporary peoples of the central Pacific.
Where are Lapita potsherds found?
It seems that within a couple of hundred years of arriving in what are now Samoa and Tonga (see map above), Lapita pottery and its distinctive design decoration had all but disappeared.
When did the Lapita people move east?
An extraordinary story. As the Lapita people moved east past the Bismarck archipelago they likely reached the Samoan and Tongan Island groups around 800 B.C.E. They then paused for 1200 years when another phase of colonization began, and people headed toward the most distant reaches of the Polynesian triangle.
Discovery of Pottery Artifacts
The discovery of pottery artifacts showed that it is one of the oldest human inventions originating before the Neolithic period. Pottery and shards of pottery have survived for millennia at archeological sites, proving their durability.
The Role of Pottery in Archeology
The discovered artifacts made it possible for archeologists to interpret how the people associated with the discovery lived in the past. This study of pottery has helped various generations understand their forefathers’ culture.
The Earliest Method of Pottery
The earliest people used the hand-building method of pottery. This process involved pinching and coiling techniques. These techniques were invented many centuries ago and inherited from generation upon generation. It is still used in the modern world, however slight.
Uses of Pottery Items
Some pottery items are functional. The earliest people made pottery for storing grains, liquids, and cooked food. Pottery evolved for many years. It is used to make beautiful tableware and other pots for decoration purposes in modern life.
Why was the Invention of Pottery so Important?
The earliest human lived nomadic life and used baskets as useful handicrafts for gathering. The establishment of agriculture led to permanent settlements.
Why is Pottery Important in Culture?
Pottery artifacts played a key role in telling the life of the ancient people. The archeologists used these artifacts to study how the earliest humans interacted with their environment and with each other.
Final Thoughts
The importance of pottery in daily life is still strong worldwide. Pottery produces a variety of items with many different uses. Some uses of its products include cooking, serving food or drinks, decorating a home, a ceremony venue e.t.c.
