Talepakemalai: Lapita and Its Transformations in the Mussau Islands of Near Oceania. Patrick Vinton Kirch, ed. Monumenta Archaeological 47. Los Angeles: UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2021. xxvi + 558 pp., 337 figures, 90 tables, bibliography, index. Hardback US$120, ISBN 9781950446179

Abstract

Asian Perspectives, Vol. 62, No. 2 © 2023 by the University of Hawai‘i Press. Talepakemalai: Lapita and Its Transformations in the Mussau Islands of Near Oceania. Patrick Vinton Kirch, ed. Monumenta Archaeological 47. Los Angeles: UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2021. xxvi + 558 pp., 337 figures, 90 tables, bibliography, index. Hardback US$120, ISBN 9781950446179. Reviewed by Christophe SAND, New Caledonia Government and French Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD-Noumea) What a book! In its nearly 600 pages, contained within a hard black cover with only the “Lapita God” as front illustration, Patrick V. Kirch has granted Pacific archaeologists with a long awaited synthesis of the unique finds of the Lapita sites of the Mussau Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago that were excavated in the mid-1980s. This book has been published 20 years after what was then presented as the first of a three-volume synthesis on the excavations fulfilled in the Mussau Islands (Kirch 2001). While it might look like a surprise to some archaeologists, this book is the first to publish up-to-date results from one of the major Lapita sites in Island Melanesia in a single volume, Talepakemalai (ECA). Numerous data on various aspects of dentate-stamped decorated pottery, associated lithic artifacts and shell ornaments, or remains of shells and bones have been published by colleagues over the past decades on specific sites across the Lapita region, but only the Lapita sites excavated on a small scale have been published completely (e.g., Anson et al. 2005; Clark and Anderson 2009; Specht and Attenbrow 2007). This volume thus sets the stage for what could be achieved for other important sites in the Bismarck Archipelago, southeast Solomons, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Aside from a preface and acknowledgements, this edited volume contains 18 chapters, more than half of them authored or co-authored by Kirch, including the introduction and conclusion. The long introduction sets the scene by presenting an overview of Lapita archaeology and the context of the Lapita Homeland Project organized by Jim Allen in 1985, of which the Mussau Project was one component. Kirch addressed a series of major themes on Mussau, including Lapita origins, economy, long-distance exchange, society, and Late Lapita transformations. Three field seasons (i.e., 1985, 1986, 1988) were dedicated to excavations of the Talepakemalai site and other Lapita sites located in surrounding islands. The main phases of each season are presented in this book, as well the outcomes of the first laboratory studies. Chapter 2 summarizes the main natural characteristics of the Mussau Islands, focusing especially on the small uplifted outer islands that dot the southern end of Mussau in a reef and lagoon environment. To address the forthcoming analysis of the unique stratigraphic fills excavated, a section is devoted to coastal geomorphology and sea-level fluctuations during the Holocene. The next two chapters detail the excavations completed over the three seasons in Mussau. Chapter 3 focuses exclusively on the excavation at the main Lapita site of Talepakemalai, labelled ECA, located on a mid-Holocene sandfill on Eloaua Island, where the local air strip was built. The chapter details the archaeological strategy of the 1985 field season, which had as its main goal to clarify initial results from investigations in the 1970s. The discovery of a well-preserved waterlogged Lapita deposit containing adjoining decorated sherds as well as preserved wooden posts of stilt houses was the main justification for the two follow-up field seasons. The chapter presents in great detail the stratigraphic observations and the spatial layout of the remains in the in situ layer, before proposing an interpretation of the chronological process of deposition over the more than 500 years that constitutes the Lapita chronology at Talepakemalai. The three main excavated areas of the site revealed the construction of two stilt houses during this phase. Early online release of article in press. Chapter 4, co-authored by Marshall I. Weisler and Nick Araho, summarizes the other excavations fulfilled during the program. Most were located on Elaoua Island and the small uplifted islands surrounding it; only five excavations were positioned on the largest island, Mussau. In an effort to clarify long-lasting debates about the antiquity of...