The Beginning of Southern Melanesian Prehistory: The St Maurice-Vatcha Lapita Site, New Caledonia

Abstract

The peopling of the western Pacific south of the Solomon Islands started with the spread of Austronesian populations more than 3000 years ago. The initial colonization of Remote Oceania is archaeologically linked to the Lapita Cultural Complex identified at more than 100 major sites from Island Papua-New Guinea to western Polynesia by a distinctive type of dentate-stamped decorated pottery and associated items. Until the last decade, Lapita sites of New Caledoniay the southernmost archipelago of Melanesia, had been poorly studied, leading to unsatisfactory conclusions about the characteristics and the length of the founding cultural complex. New excavations undertaken at the most southerly Lapita site of the Pacific, the St Maurice-Vatcha site on the Isle of Pines, shed new light on the matter. Although one of the first Lapita sites identified in the region and excavated by different teams over the years, its stratigraphy, chronology, and artifacts were not well understood. The new excavations have led to a precise understanding of the stratigraphy, and a large set of new 14C dates have firmly established Lapita chronology. The study of the archaeological material helps to test the proposal of a “Southern Lapita Province,” characterizing the earliest sites of southern Melanesia.