Prehistoric Obsidian Exchange in Melanesia: A Perspective from the Talasea Sources

Jim Specht · Richard Fullagar · Robin Torrence · Neville Baker

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Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies Archaeological and Geological Studies Historical Studies in Central America

Abstract

The Talasea region in West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea figures prominently in the prehistory of the western Pacific. During the last 12,000 years at least, it was a major source of the obsidian which was transported widely throughout the western Pacific Islands, particularly during the time of Lapita pottery (e.g. Ambrose and Green 1972; Ambrose 1976; Best 1987; Specht et al. 1981; cf. Allen and White in press). In addition, Lapita pottery sites have been found around Talasea (Specht 1974), giving rise to speculation about the role of Talasea obsidian during the Lapita pottery period, particularly in the context of possible long-distance exchange (e.g. Green 1987:224).

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References

1986Production and Exchange of Stone Tools: Prehistoric Obsidian in the Aegean 1987Archaeometry : further Australasian studies 1986Lapita pottery of the Bismarck Archipelago and its affinities 1984The Lapita cultural complex:Origins, distribution, contemporaries and successors∗1987Lapita and Oceanic Cultural Origins: Excavations in the Mussau Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, 1985 1972First Millenium BC Transport of Obsidian from New Britain to the Solomon Islands 1987Long distance obsidian travel and possible implications for the settlement of Fiji

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2006Origins, Ancestry and Alliance : Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography 2000Volcanic disasters and cultural discontinuities in Holocene time, in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea 1997Sociality and the short distance trader: intra‐regional obsidian exchange in the Willaumez region, Papua New Guinea 1989Prehistoric social landscapes of the Arawe Islands, West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea 2014Social resilience and long-term adaptation to volcanic disasters: The archaeology of continuity and innovation in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea

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