Pacific Science (1975), Vol. 29, No.4, p. 309-315 Printed in Great Britain Lapita Pottery and a Lower Sea Level in Western SamoaI "0 R. Co GREEN 2 AND HORACE G. RICHARDS3 ABSTRACT: Radiocarbon dates are presented supporting previous estimates of a 2800- to 3000-year B.P. age for a collection of Lapita pottery sherds recovered by dredging a now-submerged coastal settlement on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. New data describing a much enlarged collection are discussed in relation to previously reported materials, and the question of possible changes of sea level as the mechanism for submergence is evaluated. IN RECENT YEARS, Polynesian origins have in­ The recent discovery of other assemblages creasingly become identified with certain early with Eastern Lapita-style pottery in Ha'apai, sites that range from New Britain to Tonga and Vava'u, and Niuatoputapu in the Tongan group Samoa and that contain a type ofpottery known (Davidson 1971, Kaeppler 1973, Rogers 1974), as Lapita (Figure 1). Excavations of sites in the in conjunction with the Samoan discovery, Tongan, Fijian, New Caledonian, New Hebri­ implies that early Eastern Lapita populations des, and Santa Cruz groups and on small islands were resident throughout the Fijian, Tongan, off the coasts of New Britain and New Ireland and Samoan area before any distinctive develop­ have provided data leading to the definition of ment of Lapita culture in the Polynesian direc­ an associated artifact assemblage-perhaps tion took place. The recovery ofa related plain more properly termed a "cultural complex," pottery, as in Samoa, from a site on Futuna because the array of artifacts from these sites is (B. G. Biggs, personal communication to R. Co more varied than the pottery and is not always Green, Auckland Museum no. 46332, 46371) as distinctive. Thus, it is the easily recognized indicates that in at least three island groups of decorated pottery in every site (Figure 2) that the region-Samoa, Tonga, and Futuna-local has provided the initial means of linking these developments of Polynesian-type cultures oc­ materials. curredfrom founding Lapitapopulations. How­ The history of the identification of Lapita ever, the sole island group for which we can assemblages as the ancestral cultural complex trace continued continuity of cultural develop­ from which the earliest Polynesian cultural ment to present-day Polynesians is in Western assemblages were derived has been reviewed by Samoa (Green and Davidson 1974: 224), as the Golson (1971), Groube (1971), and Green last 2000 years of the Tongan sequence is but (1973). Until recently, however, archaeological little known and archaeological investigation evidence for this hypothesis has rested largely in Futuna is being undertaken only now (P. V. on the materials recovered from Fiji and Tonga. Kirch personal communication to R. Co Green). The discovery, therefore, ofsimilar materials in Thus, in the present circumstances, a Lapita site Samoa has strengthened considerably the elaims in Western Samoa that extends the sequence of made for the same antiquity ofsettlement there that island group back another 700 years to an as in the other two island groups and for the early Eastern Lapita-style pottery assemblage is development of a distinctive Polynesian cul­ of considerable importance to the documenta­ tural assemblage in Samoa itself from local tion of Polynesian origins. assemblages of the Lapita complex. Assistance in the identification and interpreta­ J Manuscript received 6 January 1975. tion ofthe mollusks was given by Dr. R. Tucker Z The UniversityofAuckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand. Abbott of the Delaware Museum of Natural 3 The Academy of Natural Sciences, Nineteenth and History in Greenville, Delaware. the Parkway, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. 309 20-2 310 c. ~ - "'~ew Ireland PHOENIX ..........~~ Ambitle GROUP ." "'~,.~ fo .. q New Britain ~,~SOLOMON IS. " . ELLICE IS.·, Ts> KELAU ~~~.S\ ~. I .:. • ~ IS. ~ ~ Reefs", ····SANTA CRUZ ~woins 'e:::..- It?t.... Nendo • Roturno Uvea BANK~~': Futuna I " S';\~i Niuofo'o Malo/~~ /'Niuatoputapu NEW ;!;..- AUSTRALIA • HEBRIDE~ ..",,.-Vovou " CI TONGA. .Niue NEW" ,. • •"..:Haa pal CALEDONI~~ ·:·~.LOYALTY .... fongatapu r~"" ISLANDS o 0, '. FIGURE 1. Present distribution of sites that have been assigned to the Lapita cultural complex. FIGURE 2. Design of flat-bottomed Lapita dish from the BS-RL-2 site, Reef Islands, Santa Cruz group. Lapita Pottery-GREEN AND RICHARDS 311 from earlier Lapita assemblages to those with Background ofSamoan Discovery Polynesian Plain Ware took place in Tonga, and In 1964, when only the outlines of a 2000­ only after these occurred did a more Polynesian­ year-long sequence for Western Samoa were like cultural tradition become transferred and known, it was necessary to argue that materials established in Samoa and perhaps in other belonging to the first third of the Samoan islands of West Polynesia. sequence had not as yet been recovered. It There are now several grounds on which this was made conditional on a postulated 2000­ conclusion may be challenged, grounds quite year antiquity of settlement in East Polynesia apart from the discovery of Lapita pottery in and a hypothesis that East Polynesia came from Samoa. One is the increasing probability that West Polynesia (Green and Davidson, unpub­ the earliest sites associated with pottery in the lished preliminary report). As investigations Marquesas date to before 300 A.D. and, in fact, continued from 1965 to 1967, the requirement have not been investigated (Green 1974: 247). for a Samoan sequence longer than 2000 years The second is the probability that present was reinforced by the discovery of additional coastal settlements on the raised beach sands of sites with Polynesian Plain Ware pottery. Western Samoa date from the last 1500 years Polynesian Plain Ware may be distinguished (Green and Davidson 1974: 222-223), suggest­ from ceramics of the Lapita series by its total ing that the most likely places for earlier coastal lack of the use of the dentate stamp in decora­ settlement have not been examined. The third tion and the confinement of such decoration as is the hypothesis that some changes in Lapita does occur (less than 3 percent and in some artifacts in the Polynesian direction recorded in cases none) to the rims of vessels, In addition, the pottery, adzes, and shell tools and orna­ there is a concentration on several simple bowl ments in Samoa are, in part, to be explained by forms ofvarious sizes and shapes at the expense the crossing of the andesite line and the need to of open-mouthed subglobular pots and an adapt (in contrast to Fiji and Tonga) to the bio­ almost complete lack of shouldered and flat­ geographically most impoverished part of the bottomed vessels of types common in Lapita Pacific (Green 1974: 267, 275). assemblages, 'This means that continuity is pro­ vided by the largely unstudied and undecorated The Ferry Berth Site Lapita vessels of bowl shape. Also the spatial distribution ofPolynesian Plain Ware is Tonga, Our original information on the first collec­ Samoa, the Marquesas, and probably Futuna, tions of pottery from the site at the Mulifanua and its time depth is approximately 4th century end of the island of Upolu and Western Samoa B.C. to 3rd century A.D., which contrasts with was limited to some 563 sherds, of which some the island Melanesian distribution of Lapita 8 percent were decorated, and to some general materials whose time depth is prior to the 4th comments on its location. More detailed records century B.C. made by Jennings (1974), in cooperation with Yet, the lack of direct evidence of earlier the project engineer, T. T. Hassall (who was in coastal assemblages more closely related to the charge of the blasting and dredging to create a Lapita examples found in Tonga and Fiji made turning basin and berth for the interisland it difficult to furnish strong support for this ferries), have revealed the precise location and position, Thus, it was possible for Groube stratigraphic context (Figure 3). All evidence (1971 : 279) to argue that current archaeological indicates that the site was an elongated settle­ examination of Samoa made unlikely the state­ ment on a former coral-sand beach located ment that the first 3rd ofSamoan prehistory was parallel to the present-day shoreline, a beach as yet unexplored, and to see no reason why which is now approximately 2.7 meters below Samoan settlement had occurred earlier than mean sea level. It would appear that refuse from 300-200 B.C. unless secure dates for East Poly­ the settlement was submerged and sealed in nesian settlement were pushed back before the fairly quickly through a rise in sea level in then-accepted datings of 400 A.D. This allowed relation to the land, so that deposits were little Groube to conclude that the initial changes disturbed and most sherds not badly eroded. 312 PACIFIC SCIENCE, Volume 29, October 1975 LAGOON MILE oEI=~~I~==:::l KM 250~ I' -- ...... _- ---I (no scale) MAIN SEA LEV EL TURNING BASIN 5' WATER ~~~~~~~2~1/~11~.CEMENTED ~ CORAL CRUST ...... :~'.'. BLACK SAND ...... .... ...­ ...... --- ZONE POTTERY POTTE RY IN BLACK SILTY / CONCEN. 15' CORAL SAND WITHIN ,/ CORAL SAND '(. ___D~SHED LINES / / ,. BASALT ...... PEBBLES 50' BOULDERS o I---l 15.2 M SOLID BASALT FIGURE 3. Location and geological context of Ferry Berth site, Western Samoa. The problem of whether the changes were sherds, of which 4.1 percent are decorated. movements ofland or sea level or both has not Among the Plain Ware sherds were 873 pieces been resolved. ofinterest belonging to rims, necks, shoulders, More recent collections from dredging in the and bases ofa variety ofvessels oftypical Lapita turning basin have provided an additional 4288 forms. It is probable that the percentage of Lapita Pottery-GREEN AND RICHARDS 313 decorated ware is somewhat lower than it within the past 6000 years.