Petrography of Temper Sands in 112 Reconstructed Lapita Pottery Vessels from Teouma (Efate): Archaeological Implications and Relations to Other Vanuatu Tempers

William R. Dickinson · Stuart Bedford · Matthew Spriggs

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Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies Archaeological and Geological Studies Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis

Abstract

The remarkable cache of intact and reconstructed Lapita pottery vessels excavated from the Teouma site near the south coast of Efate in Vanuatu has made possible a petrographic temper analysis for which each sherd thin section is known without doubt to derive from a different single pot. Such positive vessel-by-vessel control for the specific provenience of each sherd has not been possible during petrographic study of any other collections of prehistoric potsherds from Pacific Oceania. Our study shows that 100 of 112 Teouma vessels were made using indigenous Efate temper sands of several kinds, but that three of the vessels derive from elsewhere in Vanuatu and nine derive from New Caledonia ~500 km away to the southwest. Petrographic comparison of the Teouma temper sands with tempers in 430 Lapita and post-Lapita sherds from elsewhere in Vanuatu and the geologically related eastern outliers of the Solomon Islands at the northern end of the New Hebrides island arc defines a discrete number of generic temper provinces identified geographically as a guide for future analysis of Vanuatu tempers. Where adequate age control for ceramics is available, no generic distinctions can be drawn between tempers in Lapita and post-Lapita wares from each temper province.

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References

1982Tikopia, the Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier 2006The Teouma Lapita site and the early human settlement of the Pacific Islands 2000Pieces of the Vanuatu puzzle : archaeology of the north, south and centre 2006Temper Sands in Prehistoric Oceanian Pottery: Geotectonics, Sedimentology, Petrography, Provenance 2008Northern Vanuatu as a Pacific Crossroads: The Archaeology of Discovery, Interaction, and the Emergence of the "Ethnographic Present"2008The reconstructed environment and absolute dating of SE‐SZ‐8 Lapita site on Nendö, Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands.2010Provenance and Technology of Lithic Artifacts from the Teouma Lapita Site, Vanuatu

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