Talepakemalai

Lapita and Its Transformations in the Mussau Islands of Near Oceania

edited by Patrick Vinton Kirch

Book cover: Talepakemalai

Extent: 592 pages

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Subjects: Asian/Pacific Studies & Religions

Series: Monumenta Archaeologica

Series volume number: 47

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(November 2021)

ISBN: 9781950446179

Price: $120.00

In stock

PDF (Published)

(November 2021)

ISBN: 9781950446230

Price: $96.00

The Lapita Cultural Complex–first uncovered in the mid-20th century as a widespread archaeological complex spanning both Melanesia and Western Polynesia–has subsequently become recognized as of fundamental importance to Oceanic prehistory. Notable for its highly distinctive, elaborate, dentate-stamped pottery, Lapita sites date to between 3500-2700 BP, spanning the geographic range from the Bismarck Archipelago to Tonga and Samoa. The Lapita culture has been interpreted as the archaeological manifestation of a diaspora of Austronesian-speaking people (specifically of Proto-Oceanic language) who rapidly expanded from Near Oceania (the New Guinea-Bismarcks region) into Remote Oceania, where no humans had previously ventured. Lapita is thus a foundational culture throughout much of the southwestern Pacific, ancestral to much of the later, ethnographically-attested cultural diversity of the region.

  • By (author) Brian S Bauer
  • By (author) Javier Fonseca Santa Cruz
  • Edited by Patrick Vinton Kirch