Fully Gua

Lapita colonization

There are a number of inconsistencies associated with the premise that the descendants of Taiwanese seafarers contributed to the initial dispersal of the Lapita cultural package and dentate-stamped ceramics from Manus Island to Vanuatu and Fiji.

The application of dentate-stamped decorations to red slipped pottery can be traced to the western Bismarck Archipelago ca 1400-1300 BCE.Whether red-slipped ceramics were introduced to this area by the descendant of Taiwanese mariners or by Island SE Asian seafarers is not clearly defined.Layer 4PQ [70-120cm] at Leang Tuwo Mane’s rock shelter on Talaud Island yielded mainly plain simple ceramics,which were probably made with paddle and anvil or possibly coiling.Red slipped shards are associated with 4 pots.Most vessels appear to be globular pots with everted rims,12-22cms in diameter.about 10& of potshards had red-slipped exteriors,with red-slip restricted to a band around the inside rim of some vessels.Charcoal near the base of level 4PQ dates to 2563 BCE +/-80a,cal’07,[P Bellwood,1976].People on the tectonically unstable Talaud Island,which is closer to Manus Island than Taiwan is,could have been motivated to emigrate,when there was seismic activity.

The earliest black pottery in western Taiwan was produced ca 2170 BCE,cal?.Catagan valley,NE Luzon, red-slipped ceramics has affinities with the pottery at the Chaoliaqiao site [ca 2250 BCE, cal?] Se Taiwan.There was an increase in production of red-slipped pottery in eastern Taiwan ca 2000 BCE [Hung,2005]Red slipped and black ceramic assemblages at the Callao and Dolan Serkot caves in Cagayan valley marginally predate those at the Andarayan site [ca 1750BCE +/-80a,cal'07].The latter site has also yielded spindle whorls,polished adzes,clay ear ornaments,shell and stone beads.Thiel [1980] reported dentate-stamped,red-slipped pottery shards in the Magapit shell midden,Luzon [A Mijares,2005,2008].Red slipped and black pottery from Taiwan were probably introduced into the Cagayan valley ca 1800BCE.

The Islands of Batane are about 150km south of Taiwan.The cultural material at the Sunget site [ca1260?-700BCE] bears some resemblance to east Taiwan Beinon traditional assemblages [ca 1500-500BCE].Excavations at Sunget also unearthed nephrite, slate,unadorned,red-slipped ceramics,non-cord marked pottery, baked clay spindle whorls,bi-notched stone fishing sinkers and pig bones.The red slipped pottery is not radically different from some inventories in the Cagayan valley,[P Bellwood,2005].

There are equivocal,indirect indications that mariners from Luzon might have sailed to Saipan after ca 1600BCE.Although the upper portions of the stratigraphic sequence at the Unai Bapot site, Saipan,has been subjected to disturbance.The lower cultural horizons have largely maintained their integrity.A cemented band within layer III-A contributed to the preservation of the underlying artifacts.The lower levels at Unai Bapot contain redware and black-ware,with coarse plainware dominating the upper layers.A small number of decorated redware and blackware were retrieved from levels III-B and-C.Primary adornment consists of fine dentate impressions and stamping,which infilled incised spaces betweenparallel lines.There was slight red-slip,but no burnishing.A few shards only had incised circles and lines without dentate impressions.Decorations were limited to the visible upper zones of the vessels.Blackware displays dentate stamping and incision. Some early Mariana Island ceramics have affinities to pottery in northern Luzon ca 1800-1000BCE.Mariana languages vary from those to the south in Oceania and have some similarities to ones in the central/northern Philippines.There is no decorated redware or blackware in the basal cultural level at Unai Bapot,IV-A [ca 1600-1420BCE,corrected].A charcoal sample from layer III-A yielded a corrected age of ca 1130-900BCE.Unfortunately there is no chronology for the decorated ceramic horizons,which post date 1420BCE and predate 1130BCE,The Unai Bapot inventory included sling stones,bone spear point pieces,a lime container, abrader,adzes,fish hooks,a coral pendant [layer IV-A],shell beads,shell arm ring fragments and shell pendants [M Carson, 2008].Many aspects of the material culture of Yap and Palau Islands are distinct from those on Saipan,which could infer different points of origin for the first colonists of the two regions[M Intoh,1997].

Archaeological investigations at Uttandi rock shelter on western Kayao offshore from Halmenera Island yielded plain,unadorned,red-slipped pottery,with a mean thickness of 3-4mm.A small marine biovalve by a hearth at the base of the cultural horizonis reported to date to ca 1245BCE +/-100a ["corrected",P Bellwood,1993].If this age estimate is reasonably accurate,theUttandi assemblage post dates the appearance of dentate-stampedpottery in the Manus Island region.There is not adequate diagnostic information to identify the people ,who brought the red-slipped ceramics technology to Manus Island,because there is a paucity of excavations with reliable chronology.

Analysis of the mostly small,Early-Middle Holocene Melanesian sites infers an era of social/cultural change ca 8000-6000 BCE.Increases in the number of camp sites and refuse discard rates at the onset of the Holocene are compatible with population growth.New shell ornaments and lithic implements [Eg:stemmed tools on New Britain;R terrence,2000] were identified at many Melanesian sites.Although a few groups may have adopted a semi-Sedentary life style,most early Holocene foragers were probably mobile [C Pavides,2006].Innovations and cultural change were evident in North Island Melanesia considerably before the Lapita era.There are no definitive indications of a significant influx of newcomers to the Manus Island region coeval with the introduction of Lapita pottery.

Many components of the Lapita cultural package,which predate the Lapita period,have been recovered in Island SE Asia and Melanesia.The aceramic lower level at the Lebang Halika rock shelter [ca 1615BCE +/-80a,cal'07] contained Tridacona shell adzes,polished shell knife fragments and an incomplete Trochusshell fish hook.Edge ground adzes [not fully ground] and fire cracked cooking stones were retrieved in pre-Lapita cultural horizons at Pamrock on Manus Island [M Sprigg,1986].At Lolmcave on Kumbun Island in the Arawe Islands west of southern New Britain the lower pre-Lapita level [ca 6085-5270?bp] yielded Trochus fish hooks,arm band fragments,a pierced Canus disc and part of a shell trumpet [Gosden,1994].Drilled beads at the Matja Kuru cave 2,East Timor date to ca 9230bp +/-50a [K Szabo,nd].

Wild rice grew in Sarawak millennia before it was cultivated on Taiwan.Carbonized rice on a potshard at Gua Sireh dates to ca 2330BCE +/- 260a,cal’07 [G Dorherty,1998?].Analysis of 11 Lapita and 12pre-Lapita small,tattooing instruments indicates an indigenous origin for Melanesian tattooing practices, with no significant change in instrument prior to or during  the Lapita era[N Konanenko,2009].Pre-Lapita and Lapita tools had a wide range of functions on the Bismarck Archipelago,which did not alter radically during the early Lapita period [ibid,2008].

   Archaeological investigations have not revealed any diagnostic evidence, that Santa Cruz Island was colonized prior to the introduction of Lapita dentate pottery and obsidian directly from the Bismarck Archipelago  ca 3.2Ka ago. A later phase of Lapita ceramics was dated to post 2.8Ka on the Solomon Islands. There are no indications of a Lapita artifacts on the Solomon Islands prior to that date. There is a significant difference between the extant gene pools on Santa Cruz and the Solomon Islands. Melanesian haplogroups constitute 97.5% of the male genes and 84.8% of the female genes on Santa Cruz Island. This contrasts with the predominance of Asian haplogroups among female Solomon Islanders. [F Delfin, 2011]. This new genetic information suggests that Melanesian mariners transported Lapita dentate pottery and obsidian directly from the Bismarck Archipelago to Santa Cruz Island and that about 400 years later Lapita pottery was introduced to the Solomon Islands by people,who “may” have spoken an Austronesian language [speculation]. 

Provisional genetic results from 60 Lapita remains at Teouma,cemetery on Vanuatu did not provide any diagnostic evidence of Taiwanese/Polynesian DNA [L Matiso-Smith].The Polynesian mtDNA motif [B4a1a1] has not been identified on Oceanic human remains that predate 900BCE.G Horvat [2006] provided a summary of 493 Vanuatu mtDNA samples.Over 70% belonged to haplogroups [Hgs],which are deemed to have Melanesiann origins,and less than 18% have an Asian B4a component.The above is not compatible with a Taiwanese /Polynesian presence on Vanuatu,when the Lapita cultural packagewas introduced.The dominance of Melanesian male and female genes among the extant and prehistoric Vanuatu samples implies that they were the original colonists of Vanuatu.

Fiji has the highest frequency [ca90%] of Melanesian Y chromosome Hgs in Polynesia and ca 20.5% of Fiji mtDNAspecimens are considered to have Melanesian origins.Fiji is the only Polynesian island that has all 4 of the mtDNA hgs,that have been reported in Poynesia [M Kayser,2006].A cranial and post cranial phenotypic measurement study indicated that the Fijian specimens clustered with Melanesians rather than with Polynesians from Tonga and Samoa [Ppietrusewsky,1994]. Initial settlers on Tonga and Fiji focused on the exploitation of marine resources.There are no definitive indications that cultivation was a priority[CD Addison,2010].Melanesians could have been the first people to voyage to Fiji.

Preliminary studies of pig,chicken and rat remains at Oceanic sites have not provided evidence of Taiwanese origins.Rattus exulan bones occur in the earliest Lapita layers at many sites.The lineage,which is “tentatively” associated with the Lapita dispersal,Can only be traced to Halmahera.A later lineage is largely restricted to eastern Polynesia [S Matisa-Smith]A recent genetic study of modern chickens [Y Liu,2006] identified SE Asia as the “likely”centre of early domestication.Analysis of the mtDNA of 781 feral,domestic,ancient and modern pig remains from SE Asia and Oceania revealed that most pigs in Melanesia/Poynesia belong to the Pacific clade,which might have evolved in SE Asia [Vietnam?].Rattus tanezumi is common  north of Melanesia.,[2007G Larson]

13-12-2010

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