User:RomilyC/sandbox

Here is where I will edit Lapita Culture page...

"distribution" from Lapita Culture page

Lapita pottery is known from the Bismarck archipelago to Samoa and Tonga. Currently, the most eastern Lapita site is Mulifanua in Samoa, where 4,288 pottery sherds and two Lapita type adzes have been recovered. The site has a true age of circa 3,000 BP based on 14C dating on a shell. The domesticates spread into farther Oceania, as well. Humans, their domesticates, and species that were introduced involuntarily (perhaps as the Polynesian rat was) led to extinctions of endemic species on many islands, especially of flightless birds.

My re-write of "distribution"...

Lapita pottery has been found in near and remote Oceania; from the Bismarck Archipelago in the west, as far East as Sāmoa and as far South as New Caledonia [Bedford]. A site in Mulifauna village in Sāmoa uncovered two adzes that strongly indicate Lapita influence, carbon dating of material found with the adzes show the age of the site to be roughly 3,000 B.P [original citation]. Radio carbon dating puts Lapita sites in New Caledonia as early as 1,110 B.P [shutler]. Exact dates and sites for northern reaching Lapita influence are largely still up for debate [bedford].

"Dating" section

'Classic' Lapita pottery was produced between 1350 and 750 BCE in the Bismarck Archipelago. A late variety might have been produced there up to 250 BCE. Local styles of Lapita pottery are found in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Pottery persisted in Fiji, whereas it disappeared completely in other areas of Melanesia and in Siassi.

In Western Polynesia, Lapita pottery is found from 800 BCE onwards in the Fiji-Samoa-Tonga area. From Tonga and Samoa, Polynesian culture spread to Eastern Polynesia areas, including the Marquesas and the Society Islands, and then later to Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. However, pottery-making did not persist in most of Polynesia, mainly due to the lack of suitable clay on small islands.

My edits:

'Classic' Lapita pottery was produced between 1,600 and 1,200 BP in the Bismarck Archipelago [Spriggs]. Remnants of Lapita designs and techniques were found after 1,200 BP in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia (spriggs, bedford). Lapita pottery styles found in Fiji around 1,000 BP and continued into Western Polynesia (spriggs).

In Western Polynesia, Lapita pottery becomes less decorative (bedford) and continues to simplify until it appears to cease in in Samoa by 800 BP and in

Tonga about 2,000 years ago. [spriggs]