The Talepakemalai Lapita site and oceanic prehistory

The Lapita Cultural Complex, 3600 to 2500 B.P., represents rapid dispersal to and colonization of the southwestern Pacific by Austronesian-speaking peoples. Excavations in the Mussau Islands of Papua New Guinea have concentrated on the extensive Talepakemalai (ECA) site, and have incorporated a waterlogged deposit in which the post bases of a Lpita stilt-house are anaerobicaly preserved. This site produced critical new evidence on Lapita origins, economy, and long-distance exchange in the form of an extensive array of ceramic, shell, stone, and bone artifacts; vertebrate and invertebrate fauna; and plant macrofossils. Key results of this research are: the hypothess of an indigenous Bismarck Archipelago 'homeland' for Lapita is not supported; Lapita subsistence was broadly based and incorporated sophisticated marine exploitation and animal husbandry, and developed arboriculture; the Mussau Lapita community was one node in an extensive long-distance exchange network evidenced by imported ceramics, obsidian, chert, metavolcanic adzes, oven-stones, and other materials; ECA was a manufacturing center for a variety of shell-exchange valuables; and spatial distribution of ceramics and other artifacts within the ECA site suggest structural differentiation within Lapita society. The transformation or replacement of Lapita culture in Mussau after 2500 B.P. remains a significant problem of continuing research.