Lapita Pottery: Archaeology, Culture, and Ceramics

Introduction to the Lapita and Their Pottery

The native peoples known as the Lapita, who lived an estimated 3,000 years ago on the scattered islands of what is now the Kingdom of Tonga, have left part of their cultural legacy available for study through their ceramics. This paper reviews some of the research that explores Lapita craftsmanship through archaeological studies; through this scholarship, researchers are unearthing truths about the people who created the pottery and lived across those islands millennia ago.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) supports research into native cultures and its 2007 report, "Lapita Pottery Archaeological Sites," published by the Tonga National Commission for UNESCO (TNC), establishes for the world community that "Lapita sites are of international significance for the story they tell of the human colonization of the last major region of the world — the Islands of Remote Oceania." The Lapita peoples had clearly developed sophisticated seafaring and navigation skills, as evidence of their existence — primarily through their pottery — is found in remote places to the south and east of the Solomon Islands.

In order to thrive, colonize remote islands, and create their pottery and other crafts, the Lapita required a "detailed knowledge and understanding of the Oceanic environment, the natural resources of the land and sea," the TNC explains. There are at least 100 known Lapita sites, many of which have been systematically excavated and analyzed. Although their ceramics are found across "six major Pacific archipelagos," their decorated pottery appears to have been manufactured within a fairly brief window of time — perhaps only 300 to 400 years — as verified through radiocarbon dating of the sites.

Felgate's Research on Roviana Lagoon Pottery Scatters

Dr. Matthew Walter Felgate produced a 500-page research document focused on Lapita "pottery scatters" in shallow water and lagoons in the Solomon Islands (Felgate, 2003). Felgate, who prepared this extensive manuscript as fulfillment of his Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology, writes that there has existed a "large gap in the recorded distribution of Lapita." His work therefore involved the scientific interpretation of discoveries of Lapita pottery in the sheltered, landlocked Roviana Lagoon near Bougainville, which is centrally located in the very gap he sought to define more clearly for the literature.

Felgate was able to find "scatters of pottery, stone artifacts and other stone items" in the shallow water of Roviana Lagoon because falling water levels have resulted in "high archaeological visibility" in the region. His paper seeks to verify that Lapita peoples were "continuously distributed across Near Oceania as a network of stilt village settlement" — that is, houses built over the water on stilts. The conclusion of production of various "elaborate vessel forms" was likely a "functional change," Felgate surmises based on previous research, but it could also be linked to the demise of Lapita culture through "fundamental social changes" (Felgate, 2003, p. 78). In describing the pottery, Felgate quotes Green (1974):

"[A]ssemblages in which various shoulder pots, jars and bowls, as well as flat-bottomed dishes and plates, occur in association with widely varying percentages of dentate-stamped, notched and incised decoration… there is a range of infrequently decorated bowls of simple shapes and varying sizes, plus several forms of rather more frequently decorated sub-globular pots." (Green, 1974, as cited in Felgate, 2003, p. 78)

Between 1,600 BC and 400 BC — according to Parker (1981) — for more than a thousand years the pottery in the Western Lapita area showed "little change in the shape" of the vessels. Felgate accordingly agrees with previous researchers that the Lapita ceramic industry was "very long-lasting and stable" as a tradition (Felgate, p. 84). He explains that many uncertainties remain with regard to pottery manufacturing and the predominance and location of particular motifs. Sherds — fragments of ancient pottery — are the keys to understanding the complete picture of Lapita ceramics and culture.

Ceramic Design, Sherds, and Interpretive Challenges

"Sherd count alone" (Felgate, 2003, pp. 87–88) cannot paint a complete picture of which pieces of pottery bore rare motifs and which bore more common designs. One of the problems in conducting this research, Felgate explains, is that the zones in which sherds are located are "highly disturbed by sand-crab burrowing," believed to be responsible for the transportation of "substantial amounts of pottery to the surface" (Felgate, 2003, p. 88). Moreover, the drop in sea level following the end of the Lapita era, combined with "burrowing and turbation by marine arthropods, mammals, flora and fish," adds to the dilemma and shrouds the research in mystery (Felgate, 2003, p. 88).

What anthropologists and other scientists are finding are "generally highly fragmented samples of Lapita pottery" (Felgate, 2003, p. 89), which makes it difficult to wholly reconstruct the manufacturing process. One of the most compelling questions raised relates to changes in ceramic design across different regions of the Lapita community, spread across thousands of miles of ocean. When design changes occurred, were they universal — spread across distant islands through "synchronous" cultural adaptations happening simultaneously yet independently among pottery makers separated by thousands of miles? That question remains unanswered and is a source of much scholarly speculation (Felgate, 2003, p. 90).

Conclusion: Recent Discoveries and Future Research

A greater volume of information about the Lapita people and their ceramic skills will certainly emerge through future research. An interesting discovery was made in 2005, as reported in a university media release by Winkler (2007). Headless skeletons of the Lapita people were excavated by archaeologists Professor Matthew Spriggs and Dr. Stuart Bedford. Very few complete Lapita pots have ever been found, and this particular vessel was a "flat-bottomed dish placed upside down" with "designs of human faces" around its sides. When the pot was lifted from the sand, the scientists realized it was the lid of a second, larger complete pot — and inside that pot was a human skull.

Such discoveries demonstrate that Lapita ceramics are far more than decorative artifacts; they are windows into the ritual life, social organization, and cultural identity of one of the ancient Pacific world's most remarkable seafaring civilizations. As archaeological methods continue to improve, future research will no doubt illuminate further the complex legacy of the Lapita people and their extraordinary ceramic tradition.

Works Cited

Ambrose, Wal. "The Implements of Lapita Ceramic Stamped Ornamentation." Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Retrieved April 28, 2009.

Felgate, Matthew Walter. "Reading Lapita in Near Oceania: Intertidal and Shallow-Water Pottery Scatters, Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia, Solomon Islands." PhD dissertation, 2003. Retrieved April 27, 2009.

Kennett, D.J., Anderson, A.J., Cruz, M.J., Clark, G.R., and Summerhayes, G.R. "Geochemical Characterization of Lapita Pottery Via Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)." Archaeometry, 46.1 (2004): 35–46.

Tonga National Commission for UNESCO. "Lapita Pottery Archaeological Sites (A National Serial Site for Consideration as the Kingdom of Tonga's Contribution to a Transnational Serial Site Listing)." 2007. Retrieved April 27, 2009.

Winkler, Tim. "Heads Found in Pots in Vanuatu Dig." 2007. Retrieved April 28, 2009.