TA31 Book.Indb 407 24/11/09 12:15:36 PM 408 Geoffrey Clark and Atholl Anderson
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
16 Colonisation and culture change in the early prehistory of Fiji Geoffrey Clark Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University Atholl Anderson Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University Introduction The arrival of humans in the Fiji Islands at ca. 2950–3050 cal. BP was, in historical and ecological terms, a momentous event in Pacific prehistory that nonetheless comprised only a relatively small part of the Lapita expansion in Near and Remote Oceania. In turn, Lapita colonisation was only one of several prehistoric migratory movements in Oceania that began during the late Pleistocene movement to Near Oceania (Allen and O’Connell 2008), with the frequency and scale of maritime movements increasing during the late Holocene (Anderson 2001; Green 2003). In this chapter, we situate the colonisation of Fiji and the Early Prehistory of Fiji Project results in the Lapita expansion, contrasting it with human arrival in western Micronesia and the colonisation of East Polynesia. These prehistoric migratory movements suggest a preference for colonisation of uninhabited landmasses. In the case of Lapita migration, suspected avoidance of the main Solomon Islands and Samoa raises, among other critical issues, questions about seafaring capacity and colonisation pattern during the Lapita era. These are particularly important when considering human arrival in Fiji–West Polynesia because the 800+ km water gap separating Vanuatu–New Caledonia from Fiji was the largest inter-archipelagic voyage in the Lapita world, and it is generally held to be a significant barrier to Lapita movement (Green 1991; Irwin 1992; Clark and Murray 2006). A seafaring ability that was able to bypass extensive island groups like the Solomons and Fiji (Burley and Dickinson 2001; Sheppard and Walter 2006) alludes to a maritime capacity with terra australis 31 TA31 book.indb 407 24/11/09 12:15:36 PM 408 Geoffrey Clark and Atholl Anderson the potential to transport large migrant numbers to Fiji from several western archipelagos settled by Lapita groups. However, the evidence for systematic long-range voyaging in Remote Oceania is equivocal (Anderson 2003, 2008a; Irwin 2008), and a predominantly incremental pattern of movement is suggested by the distribution of Kutau/Bao obsidian and the localisation of ceramic designs, notwithstanding the likelihood that some long-range passages occurred in Lapita times. At the intra-archipelagic level, the Lapita dispersal in Fiji is examined using stylistic variation among early ceramic assemblages, site characteristics and the subsistence economy. The post- Lapita period, starting at ca. 2500 BP, is argued to represent a significant shift in settlement approach, landscape use, and mobility patterns, which, by the first millennium AD, contributed to the increased diversity of human systems in Fiji. Lapita colonisation and oceanic migration The late-Holocene migration of people in the Pacific Ocean took in three distinct geographic areas that in orthodox scholarship represent independent dispersal events during the period ca. 3500 BP to 700 BP (Figure 170). The smallest and possibly oldest dispersal was to western Micronesia. It probably originated from eastern Indonesia–southern Philippines (Callaghan and Fitzpatrick 2009) and encompassed Palau and the Mariana Islands, with indirect evidence that it also included Yap (Donaldson and Intoh 1999). The dating of this expansion is uncertain, with archaeological sites in Palau and Saipan dating no older than 3500–3100 cal. BP (Clark 2005; Liston 2005; Clark et al. 2006; Carson 2008), but palaeoecological data that might indicate human activity as early as 4500 cal. BP (Athens et. al 2004; Dickinson and Athens 2007). Archaeological dates on marine bivalves extend to 3100–3000 cal. BP on Palau and to 3500 cal. BP on Saipan (Carson 2008), but the latter determinations are probably affected by burning and are too old. If so, western Micronesia was probably settled at 3400–3200 cal. BP, although a robust colonisation chronology for the region has yet to be established (Clark 2004). The second dispersal was the Lapita migration, which extends from Manus in the west (146º 57') to Samoa in the east (172º 03'). It has been considered a separate event from the colonisation of western Micronesia, although both have a similar antiquity of ca. 3400–3000 cal. BP based on radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites (Clark 2005; Specht 2007; Green et al. 2008), and both involved groups that derived ultimately from Island Southeast Asia and produced various types of red-slipped pottery. A direct connection between the two migrations has been proposed (Craib 1999), and Bellwood (2005) suggests a direct origin for Lapita culture in the Mariana Islands of western Micronesia. Accepting the generic similarities in material culture, there are, however, also significant differences in the two cultural assemblages, including an absence of pig, dog and Rattus exulans remains in western Micronesia before about 2000 BP (Anderson 2008b). Analysis of modern pig DNA suggests that the western Micronesian source is East Asian, while pigs in Melanesia and Polynesia belonged to a Pacific clade (Larson et al. 2007). There are also dissimilarities in pottery and shell ornaments (Szabo and Summerhayes 2002; Carson 2008; DeFant 2008). The third migration was of Polynesians from the Tonga–Samoa region eastward to the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Marquesas. The chronology of this expansion is debated, with current radiocarbon dates for migration at 1200–800 BP (Anderson and Sinoto 2002; Green and Weisler 2002; Conte and Anderson 2003). This movement, possibly divided into earlier tropical and later sub-tropical to temperate-zone migrations, eventually encompassed New Zealand, Easter Island and Hawaii (Hunt and Lipo 2008; Wilmshurst et al. 2008), along with numerous islands and atolls within triangle Polynesia, including some that were abandoned in terra australis 31 TA31 book.indb 408 24/11/09 12:15:36 PM Colonisation and culture change in the early prehistory of Fiji 409 Major colonisation movements in the Pacific Ocean from 3500 to 700 BP. 3500 from Ocean in the Pacific movements Major colonisation Figure 170. Figure terra australis 31 TA31 book.indb 409 24/11/09 12:15:39 PM 410 Geoffrey Clark and Atholl Anderson prehistory (Weisler 1994; Anderson and White 2001; Anderson 2002). Whatever the proximate cause(s) of migration in Remote Oceania (Anderson et al. 2006a), it is useful to compare dispersal among the regions. Dispersal to western Micronesia occurred over a distance of 2300 km and took in between 9° and 13° of latitude (north), depending on an origin in eastern Indonesia or the southern Philippines. Lapita dispersal extended 4680 km and took in 21° of latitude (south). The East Polynesian language-culture distribution spans some 7400 km and a staggering 68° of latitude. As the periods involved are a few hundred years in each case, the rate of dispersal was increasing (cf. Irwin 1992). Anderson (2001) suggests this was also happening within the Lapita expansion. Whether the rates reflect changes in dispersal capability, for example in seafaring technology, or in some other variables, is open to conjecture. The wind conditions for eastward travel are less favourable in Micronesia and East Polynesia than in the Lapita region, where monsoonal westerlies are relatively predictable and seasonally persistent. The ability to move a large colonising propagule, which is partly a function of proximity between source and destination, would affect the demography of colonisation and it may be, for example, that many fewer people reached western Micronesia than Santa Cruz in the Lapita era and that their ability to sustain continuing migration was attenuated accordingly. Again, it might be a function of incentive. There is not much beyond western Micronesia, but beyond Santa Cruz there are many large islands. It may have been for the latter reason that west Micronesian expansion captured only 1600 sq. km of land, compared with a Lapita expansion across 146,000 sq. km of land. East Polynesian migration captured 288,520 sq. km, although this cannot have been by land-area incentive, which declined eastward, the discovery of New Zealand being entirely unpredictable and representing more than 90% of the East Polynesian land area. If migration success is measured by the proportion of land area to dispersal area, the capture rate of land, then this gives an index of migration success (MI), which has western Micronesia with an MI of 0.08, East Polynesia with an MI of 0.48 and Lapita colonisation with the highest MI of 1.5 (Figure 171). Using ocean area (sq. km) for the three expansions produces the same pattern (Figure 171), indicating that Lapita migration might be considered the most successful of the three movements in terms of locating and colonising island territory. The migration index values could also suggest that because Lapita colonisation was supported by high territory yields relative to the costs and risks of dispersal, the migration stream may have been continuous, especially in the region from the Bismarck Archipelago area to the Vanuatu–New Caledonia area, where the size of islands/archipelagos is relatively large, island inter-visibility is high and intervening water gaps are 350 km or less. The early movements in Remote Oceania thus show a contrast in dispersal versus land capture. West Micronesia was low on both counts, East Polynesia had high