1. Home
  2. Education
  3. Archaeology

The Lapita Face and its Cultural Context

The Persistence of a Legend

By K. Kris Hirst, About.com

'Face' design on potsherds excavated at the Talepakemalai site, Mussau Islands, Papua New Guinea

The Lapita Face - Schematic of the Lapita Face Motif. 'Face' design on three potsherds excavated at the Talepakemalai archaeological site in the Mussau Islands, Papua New Guinea (redrawn by Jill Seagard from Kirch 1997, fig. 5.6).

JE Terrell and EM Schechter 2006
Much of the recent debate over the Lapita has been focused on the origins of the culture. The Lapita culture has long been associated with Austronesian speakers, but a search for a place where the master seafarers came from has been fruitless. Recent cave research has determined that the Lapita were not the first humans to live on many of the islands of the Pacific, and in fact some sites in Near Oceania and Australia are dated to 40,000 years ago. But the cultural resonance of the Lapita face, whether it indeed represents a turtle in some of its reincarnations, is in itself reminiscent of the lure of the Lapita culture.

Sources

Bedford, Stuart, Matthew Spriggs, and Ralph Regenvanu 1999 The Australian National University-Vanuatu Cultural Centre Archaeology Project, 1994-97: Aims and results. Oceania 70:16-24.

Dickinson, William R., et al. 1996 Sand tempers in indigenous Lapita and Lapitoid Polynesian Plainware and imported protohistoric Fijian pottery of Ha'apai (Tonga) and the question of Lapita tradeware. Archaeology in Oceania 31:87-98.

Kirch, Patrick V. 1987 Lapita and Oceanic cultural origins: Excavations in the Mussau Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, 1985. Journal of Field Archaeology 14(2):163-180.

Kirch, Patrick V. 1978 The Lapitoid period in West Polynesia: Excavations and survey in Niuatoputapu, Tonga. Journal of Field Archaeology 5(1):1-13.

Terrell, John Edward. 2006. Human biogeography: evidence of our place in nature. Journal of Biogeography 33:2088–2098

Terrell, John Edward. 2004. The 'sleeping giant' hypothesis and New Guinea's place in the prehistory of Greater Near Oceania. World Archaeology 36(4):601-609.

Terrell, John Edward. 2004. Introduction: 'Austronesia' and the great Austronesian migration. World Archaeology 36(4)586–590.

Terrell, John Edward and Esther M. Schechter. 2007. Deciphering the Lapita code: the Aitape ceramic sequence and the late survival of the 'Lapita face'. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. In press

Smith, Anita 1995 The need for Lapita: Explaining change in the Late Holocene Pacific archaeological record. World Archaeology 26(3):366-379.

White, J. P. 1999 Who is the pottery, pray, and who the pot? Review of Archaeology 20(1):12-14.

Explore Archaeology

More from About.com

  1. Home
  2. Education
  3. Archaeology
  4. Archaeology 101
  5. Blogs, Podcasts & Videos
  6. Latest Articles
  7. The Lapita Face and its Cultural Context

©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.