People are more than just Pots

The first 200 words of this essay...

People are more than just Pots

What is Lapita? This question, as many have noted, continuing to stimulate debate amongst those who are interested in the archaeology of Oceania. Although this student is not qualified to discuss many of the issues raised (particularly linguistics), an attempt will be made to address this question. There is no doubt something (temporal horizon, cultural phenomena etc) is represented by the artefacts associated with the distinctive pottery known as Lapita. It seems to this student that Lapita should be addressed as an archaeological culture rather than as an ethnic culture representing a homogenous group of people. In the first instance, what is known about Lapita will be outlined. The question of whether Lapita is more than just pots will be discussed before the criticisms of Terrell (1989) are reviewed. Finally the theories of Lapita origin will be discussed in an attempt to show that not only is Lapita more than just pots, but also the peoples who created the pots where more that just Lapita.

The archaeological culture known as Lapita, distinguished by dentated-stamped decorated ceramics (Ambrose 1997), as depicted in Figure 1and 2, extended 'down the Melanesian island chain from New