Oceanic explorations
Subtitle: Lapita and western pacific settlement
By: edited by Stuart Bedford, Christophe Sand and Sean P. Connaughton
Series: Terra australis -- 26
Publisher: ANU E Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Canberra, A.C.T
Language: eng
Number of pages: 299
ISBN-13: 9780975122907
Subjects: Lapita culture; Anthropology; Antiquities
Description: Lapita comprises an archaeological horizon that is fundamental to the understanding of human colonisation and settlement of the Pacific as it is associated with the arrival of the common ancestors of the Polynesians and many Austronesian-speaking Melanesians more than 3000 years ago. While Lapita archaeology has captured the imagination and sustained the focus of archaeologists for more than 50 years, more recent discoveries have inspired renewed interpretations and assessments. Oceanic Explorations reports on a number of these latest discoveries and includes papers which reassess the Lapita phenomenon in light of this new data. They reflect on a broad range of interrelated themes including Lapita chronology, patterns of settlement, migration, interaction and exchange, ritual behaviour, sampling strategies and ceramic analyses, all of which relate to aspects highlighting both advances and continuing impediments associated with Lapita research.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in an electronic ed.
Table of contents: title: Lapita and Western Pacific settlement : progress prospects and persistent problems  -- Stuart Bedford and Christophe Sand; title: Tha origins of early Lapita culture : the testimony of historical linguistics  -- Andrew Pawley; title: Small islands in the big picture : the formative period of Lapita in the Bismarck Archipelaego  -- Jim Specht; title: Lapita all over : Land use on the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea  -- Jim Specht and Robin Torrence; title: Lapita writ small : Revisiting the Austronesian colonisation of the Papuan south coast  -- Glenn Summerhayes and Jim Allen; title: Leap frogging or limping : recent evidence from the Lapita Littoral Fringe : New Georgia : Soloman Islands  -- Matthew Felgate; title: Sample size and the Reef-Santa Cruz Lapita sequence  -- Peter Sheppard and Roger C. Green; title: Makué (Aore Island, Santo, Vanuatu) : a new Lapita site in the ambit of New Britain obsidian distribution  -- Jean-Christophe Galipaud and Mary Clare Swete Kelly; title: Echoes from a distance : research into the Lapita occupation of the Rove Peninsula, Southwest Viti Levu, Fiji -- Patrick Nunn.; title: Paleoenvironment of Lapita sites on Fanga Uta Lagoon, Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga  -- William R. Dickinson; title: In search of Lapita and Polynesian plaiware settlements in Vavau, Kingdom of Tonga  -- David V. Burley; title: Can we dig it : archaeology of ancestral Polynesian society in Tonga  -- Sean P. Connaughton; title: The implements of Lapita ceramic stamped ornamentation  -- Wallace Ambrose; title: The exccavation conservation and reconstruction of Lapita burial pots from the Teouma site, Efate, Central Vauatu  -- Stuart Bedford, Mathew Spriggs, Ralph Regenvanu, Colin Macgregor, Takaronga Kuautonga, Michael Sietz; title: Detailed analysis of Lapita face motifs : case studies from the Reef-Santa Cruz sites and New Caledonia Lapita site 13A  -- Scarlett Chiu; title: Looking at the big motifs : a typology of the central band decorations of the Lapita ceramic tradition of New Caledonia (Southern Melanesia) and preliminary regional comparisons  -- Christophe Sand; title: Specialisation standardisation and Lapita ceramics -- Geoffery Clark.