page_title: Austronesian peoples
section_title: Jade carving
hierarchical_section_title: Austronesian peoples / Culture / Jade carving
caption_attribution_description: English: Jade pendant: Māori Style Ornamental Hook; NewZealand "Greenstone" work
context_page_description: The Austronesian peoples, or more accurately Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of various peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Oceania and Madagascar, that speak the Austronesian languages. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.
  Based on the current scientific consensus, they originate from a prehistoric seaborne migration from Taiwan, at around 3000 to 1500 BCE, known as the Austronesian expansion. Austronesians were the first people to invent maritime sailing technology which enabled their rapid dispersal into the islands of the Indo-Pacific. They assimilated the earlier Paleolithic Negrito, Orang Asli, and the Australo-Melanesian Papuan populations in the islands at varying levels of admixture. They also reached Rapa Nui, Japan, Madagascar, New Zealand and Hawaii at their furthest extent, possibly also reaching the Americas. A.G. Ioannidis et al. published in 2020 a genome analysis showing an Austronesian contact to South America around 1150–1200, the earliest one between Fatu Hiva from the Marquesas Islands, and Colombia.
context_section_description: The ancestral pre-Austronesian Liangzhu culture (3400–2250 BCE) of the Yangtze River delta was one of the ancient centers of Neolithic jade carving. Jade was spread to Taiwan by around 3,000 BCE, then further into Vietnam at 2,000 BCE and the Philippines at 1,800–1,500 BCE. All of them began to produce various tools and ornaments in indigenous jade workshops, including adzes, bracelets, beads, and rings.
  The most notable jade products of these regions were the vast amounts of penannular and double-headed earrings and pendants known as lingling-o, primarily produced in the Philippines and the Sa Huỳnh culture of Vietnam, though remarkably mostly with the raw jade material sourced from eastern Taiwan. These typically depict two-headed animals or were ring-shaped with side projections. They were indicative of a very active ancient maritime trading region that imported and exported raw jade and finished jade ornaments known as the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere. They were produced during a period between 500 BCE to as late as 1000 CE, although later examples were replaced with metal, wood, bone, clay, green mica, black nephrite, or shell materials, rather than green jade.
  Polished and ground stone adzes, gouges, and other implements, some of which are made from jade-like stone, have also been recorded in areas of Island Melanesia and eastern New Guinea associated with the Lapita culture. These were considered valuable currency and were primarily used to trade for goods. In 2012, a Lapita culture jadeite gouge used for wood carving was found in Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago. It was dated to around 3,300 BP, but the origin of the jade material is unknown. Similar prestige stone tools have also been found in New Caledonia.
  Jade was absent in most of Remote Oceania, due to the lack of jade deposits. However, there is putative evidence that Polynesians may have remained familiar with jade and may have acquired them through prehistoric trade contacts with New Caledonia, Island Melanesia, and/or New Zealand.
  Jade carving traditions reappeared among the Māori people of New Zealand. These were produced from locally sourced pounamu (greenstone) and were used to produce taonga (treasure). They include various tools and weapons like adzes, scrapers, fishing hooks, and mere, as well as ornaments like the hei-tiki and hei matau. Certain ornaments like the pekapeka (double-headed animal pendant) and the kākā pōria (bird leg ring) bear remarkably strong resemblances to the double-headed and ring-type lingling‑o. Bellwood et al. (2011) has suggested that the reappearance of these motifs might be evidence of a preserved tradition of Southeast Asian jade motifs (perhaps carved in perishable wood, bone, or shell by Polynesians prior to the reacquisition of a jade source), or they might even be the result of a later Iron Age contact between eastern Polynesia and the Philippines.
caption: Māori hei matau jade pendant
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