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Article: Far Western, Western, and Eastern Lapita: a re-evaluation.(Oceania)(Statistical Data Included)
- Article from:
- Asian Perspectives: the Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific
- Article date:
- March 22, 2000
- Author:
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ALTHOUGH NEAR OCEANIA has been populated for over 35,000 years, the settlement of the islands east of the main Solomon Island chain, known as Remote Oceania, occurred about 3000 years ago. The archaeological signature of these colonizers is a distinctive type of pottery called Lapita. It is found from Aitape on the north coast of New Guinea in the west to Samoa in the east in contexts dated between c. 3350 and 2350 B.P.
Archaeologists working in the region today are attempting to understand the nature of the societies that produced and used Lapita pottery and the nature of the interactions among these societies. Similarities in pottery decoration, in particular ...