From K. Kris Hirst,
Your Guide to Archaeology.
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The Lapita culture is the name given to the artifactual remains associated with the people who settled the area east of the Solomon Islands called Remote Oceania between 3400 and 2900 years ago.

The earliest Lapita sites were found in the Bismarck islands, and within 400 years, the Lapita had spread over an area of 3400 kilometers, stretching through the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia, and eastward to Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. Located on small islands and the coasts of larger islands, and separated from one another by as much as 350 kilometers, the Lapita lived in villages of stilt-legged houses and earth-ovens, made distinctive pottery, fished and exploited marine and aquacultural resources, raised domestic chickens, pigs and dogs, and grew fruit- and nut-bearing trees.

Lapita Cultural Attributes

Lapita pottery consists of mostly plain, red-slipped, coral sand-tempered wares; but a small percentage are ornately decorated pottery, with intricate geometric designs incised or stamped onto the surface with a fine-toothed dentate stamp, perhaps made of turtle or clam shell. One often repeated motif in Lapita pottery is what appears to be stylized eyes and nose of a human or animal face. The pottery is built, not wheel thrown, and low-temperature fired.

Other artifacts found at Lapita sites include shell tools including fishhooks, obsidian and other cherts, stone adzes, personal ornaments such as beads, rings, pendants and carved bone.

Origins of the Lapita

The origins of the Lapita culture before their arrival is widely debated, because there do not seem to be clear antecedents to the elaborate pottery of the Bismarcks. One comment made recently by Anita Smith suggests that the use of the concept of the Lapita complex is (ironically enough) too simple to truly do justice to the complex processes of island colonization in the region.

Archaeological Sites

Lapita, Talepakemalai, Bismarck Islands; Nenumbo, Solomon Islands; Kalumpang, Sulawesi; Bukit Tengorak, Sabah; Uattamdi, Kayoa Island; ECA, Eloaua Island; ECB or Etakosarai, Eloaua Island; EHB or Erauwa, Emananus Island.

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 and Esther M. Schechter. 2007. Deciphering the Lapita code: the Aitape ceramic sequence and the late survival of the ‘Lapita face’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17:59-85.

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.