Abstract
Vanuatu was first settled ca. 3000 years ago by populations associated with the Lapita culture. Models of diet, subsistence practices, and human interaction for the Lapita and subsequent occupation periods have been developed mainly using the available archaeological and paleoenvironmental data. We test these models using stable (carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur) and radiogenic (strontium) isotopes to assess the diet and childhood residency of past communities that lived on the small (<1 km2) island of Uripiv, located off the northeast coast of Malakula, Vanuatu. The burials are from the initial Lapita occupation of the island (ca. 2800–2600 BP), the subsequent later Lapita (LL, ca. 2600–2500 BP) and post-Lapita (PL, ca. 2500–2000 BP) occupations, in addition to a late prehistoric/historic (LPH, ca. 300–150 BP) occupation period. The human stable isotope results indicate a progressively more terrestrial diet over time, which supports the archaeological model of an intensification of horticultural and arboricultural systems as local resources were depleted, populations grew, and cultural situations changed. Pig diets were similar and included marine foods during the Lapita and PL periods but were highly terrestrial during the LPH period. This dietary pattern indicates that there was little variation in animal husbandry methods during the first 800 years of prehistory; however, there was a subsequent change as animal diets became more controlled in the LPH period. After comparison with the local bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr baseline, all of the Lapita and LPH individuals appeared to be ‘local’, but three of the PL individuals were identified as “non-local.” We suggest that these “non-locals” moved to the island after infancy or childhood from one of the larger islands, supporting the model of a high level of regional interaction during the post-Lapita period.
Highlights
Around 3300 BP an Austronesian-speaking people migrated eastward from Island South East Asia (ISEA) and established settlements on the previously inhabited islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, which can be identified today from remnants of the Lapita culture [1,2,3,4]
Prehistoric human and faunal carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur stable isotope ratios All but three of the prehistoric humans and one later Lapita (LL) pig met the quality criteria for well-preserved collagen [108,109,110] and these four samples were removed from the following statistical analyses and interpretations
As local resources were likely depleted, there was a transition to a greater reliance on cultivated plants during the later Lapita and postLapita periods, as horticulture and arboriculture were intensified and adapted to local conditions
Summary
Around 3300 BP an Austronesian-speaking people migrated eastward from Island South East Asia (ISEA) and established settlements on the previously inhabited islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, which can be identified today from remnants of the Lapita culture [1,2,3,4]. Lapita populations rapidly continued their easterly movement, entering the uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania around 3100 BP (Fig. 1). This colonization of Remote Oceania marked one of the last great human migrations on earth [5,6]. Soon after initial settlement across the Lapita distribution (from New Guinea to Samoa) there is evidence of increasing regionalization and diversification in material culture and languages [8,9,11,12]. There is still some evidence of diluted connections across the Lapita distribution in the form of decorative motifs on pottery from the late Lapita period, but diversification seems to dominate the material culture.
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