Studying the Nature of Mobility Through Lapita Pottery from the Anir Islands, Papua New Guinea
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From Field to Museum Studies from Melanesia in Honour of Robin Torrence edited by Jim Specht, Val Attenbrow, and Jim Allen Specht, Jim, Val Attenbrow, and Jim Allen. 2021. Preface ..................................................................... 1 Neall, Vincent, Lucy McGee, Michael Turner, Tanya O’Neill, Anke Zernack, and J. Stephen Athens. 2021. Geochemical fingerprinting of Holocene tephras in the Willaumez Isthmus District of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea ...................................................................... 5 Pengilley, Alana. 2021. Geochemistry and sources of stone tools in south-west New Britain, Papua New Guinea .................................................................................................................... 25 Shaw, Ben, and Simon Coxe. 2021. Cannibalism and developments to socio-political systems from 540 BP in the Massim Islands of south-east Papua New Guinea ....................... 47 Ford, Anne, Vincent Kewibu, and Kenneth Miamba. 2021. Avanata: a possible Late Lapita site on Fergusson Island, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea .............................. 61 Hogg, Nicholas W. S., Glenn R. Summerhayes, and Yi-lin Elaine Chen. 2021. Moving on or settling down? Studying the nature of mobility through Lapita pottery from the Anir Islands, Papua New Guinea .............................................................................................. 71 Lentfer, Carol J., Alison Crowther, and Roger C. Green. 2021. The question of Early Lapita settlements in Remote Oceania and reliance on horticulture revisited: new evidence from plant microfossil studies at Reef/Santa Cruz, south-east Solomon Islands ...................... 87 Rath, Pip, and Nina Kononenko. 2021. Negotiating social identity through material practices with stone ................................................................................................................. 107 Dickinson, Paul. 2021. Narrow margins: standardised manufacturing of obsidian stemmed tools as evidence for craft specialisation and social networks in mid-Holocene New Britain ............................................................................................................................. 119 Reepmeyer, Christian. 2021. Modelling prehistoric social interaction in the south-western Pacific: a view from the obsidian sources in northern Vanuatu .............................................. 137 Barton, Huw. 2021. The cylindrical stone adzes of Borneo ............................................................... 149 Davies, Susan M., and Michael Quinnell. 2021. Up close and personal: James Edge- Partington in Australia in 1897 ................................................................................................ 169 Lilje, Erna, and Jude Philp. 2021. The dancing trees: objects, facts and ideas in museums .............. 183 Rhoads, James W. 2021. Papuan Gulf spirit boards and detecting social boundaries: a preliminary investigation ...................................................................................................... 195 Bonshek, Elizabeth. 2021. The Longgu community time capsule: contemporary collecting in Solomon Islands for the Australian Museum ..................................................... 219 Sheppard, Peter J. 2021. Tomoko: raiding canoes of the western Solomon Islands ............................ 231 Richards, Rhys, and Peter J. Matthews. 2021. Barkcloth from the Solomon Islands in the George Brown Collection .............................................................................................. 245 Technical Reports of the Australian Museum Online, no. 34, pp. 1–258 12 May 2021 Tech. Rep. Aust. Mus. Online Technical Reports of the Australian Museum Online Number 34, pp. 71–86, 2021 a peer-reviewed open-access journal https://doi.org/10.3853/j.1835-4211.34.2021.1744 published by the Australian Museum, Sydney communicating knowledge derived from our collections ISSN 1835-4211 (online) Moving On or Settling Down? Studying the Nature of Mobility through Lapita Pottery from the Anir Islands, Papua New Guinea Nicholas W. S. Hogg1 , Glenn R. Summerhayes1,2 , and Yi-lin Elaine Chen1 1 Archaeology Programme, School of Social Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand 2 School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia Abstract. Summerhayes has argued that changes in the mobility of Lapita communities within the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea is reflected in numerous aspects of their pottery assemblages. Such changes are seen most markedly in a reduction in the number of clay and temper combinations over time, which indicates less movement across the landscape to collect clays and tempers for pottery production. This pattern was identified in the Arawe Islands and Mussau Islands, and more tentatively in the Anir Islands of southern New Ireland Province. This research reviews and re-interprets the previous studies of the Anir pottery assemblages through mineralogical and geochemical analyses to test whether the Arawes and Mussau model applies in this region. Previous work upon pottery assemblages from the Tanga islands is also brought into the discussion as a means of comparison and to identify possible exchange relationships between the Anir and Tanga groups. Introduction This pattern was first identified in the Arawe Islands assemblages, whereby the ratio of dentate stamped wares and Extensive research by Anson (1983, 1986), Hunt (1989) the vessel forms primarily associated with such decoration and Summerhayes (2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2003, 2010) upon (bowls and stands) declined over time from the Early Lapita ceramic assemblages from sites of the Bismarck to Middle Lapita periods, while vessels without dentate Archipelago of Papua New Guinea, has begun to isolate stamping, such as outcurving jars, remained the same in clear differences between Early Lapita ceramic assemblages terms of decoration and numbers (Summerhayes, 2000a: and those from Middle/Late Lapita contexts. The differences 155–156, 231; 2000c: 301). Similar observations were made stem from both the function of the ceramic assemblages and with preliminary research undertaken on material from the changes occurring within Lapita society. Anir Islands, where Early Lapita deposits in Kamgot (ERA) Based upon a comparison of assemblages from the have higher proportions of dentate stamping as well as bowls Arawe Islands and the mid north coast of New Britain, the and stands, as opposed to the later sites of Balbalankin (ERC) Mussau Islands off northern New Ireland, and the results of and Malekolon (EAQ) which have a much higher proportion preliminary analyses conducted on the Anir Islands sites, of carinated jars lacking dentate stamping. Additionally, Summerhayes (2000a: 231–233, 2001a, 2001b: 61) argued such patterns can also be seen in the Early and Middle/ that Lapita ceramic assemblages could be functionally Late Mussau Lapita assemblages (Summerhayes, 2000a: divided between vessels with dentate stamping and those 232–233; 2000b: 57–62; 2003: 139–140). without, and these two components had variable rates of Alongside the changes occurring with form and change, where the former changed dramatically over time decoration, Summerhayes (2000a: 225–290) also argued while the latter changed very little. for changes in pottery production, whereby Early Lapita Keywords: Papua New Guinea; Anir Island Group; Lapita pottery; formal analysis; decoration analysis; fabric analysis; mobility Corresponding author: Nicholas W. S. Hogg [email protected] Received: 19 November 2020 Accepted: 30 November 2020 Published: 12 May 2021 (online only) Publisher: The Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia (a statutory authority of, and principally funded by, the NSW State Government) Citation: Hogg, Nicholas W. S., Glenn R. Summerhayes, and Yi-lin Elaine Chen. 2021. Moving on or settling down? Studying the nature of mobility through Lapita pottery from the Anir Islands, Papua New Guinea. In From Field to Museum—Studies from Melanesia in Honour of Robin Torrence, ed. Jim Specht, Val Attenbrow, and Jim Allen. Technical Reports of the Australian Museum Online 34: 71–86. https://doi.org/10.3853/j.1835-4211.34.2021.1744 Copyright: © 2021 Hogg, Summerhayes, Chen. This is an open access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited. 72 Technical Reports of the Australian Museum Online no. 34 (2021) Figure 1. Early Lapita production model identified with the Arawe assemblages (after Summerhayes and Allen, 2007: fig. 5). pottery was produced using a wide range of temper sands temper sands were used exclusively for any specific vessel and clays, and Middle/Late pottery was produced using a forms (Summerhayes, 2000a: 225–229, 2003: 140–141). narrower range of such materials. This change arguably Referencing a preliminary fabric analysis (discussed reflects a decrease in population mobility. In this model, below), Summerhayes (2001b) tentatively proposed that highly mobile early populations were exploring and moving similar changes in pottery production may have occurred around the landscape to acquire resources for pottery in the Anir Islands. Following this publication, studies production, resulting in the use of an eclectic mixture of undertaken upon Lapita ceramics from the Anir Islands clays and tempers. However, over