126
7 The Horticultural Context
appearance of sites ranging from the Mussau islands and Ambitle, to New Ireland,
to the Arewa group off the southern coast of New Britain, and on to Nissan and
Buka in the northern Solomons”. He notes that
Several characteristics render these sites wholly different from anything preceding them in
Near Oceania. First they were good-sized settlements. . .situated on coastal beach terraces
or built out over the shallow lagoons as clusters of stilt-houses. Second, their occupants
made, traded, and used large quantities of earthenware ceramics, of both plain and decorated
varieties. Third, the economic base had expanded from that of the preceding phase in Near
Oceania, utilizing all of the tree crops that had been domesticated in this region, but also
including pigs, dogs and chickens. Fishing strategies were sophisticated, and they employed
a variety of fishhooks, including trolling lures for taking tuna and other pelagic fish on the
open ocean. . .The Lapita people were seafarers, venturing beyond coastal waters to move
substantial quantities of pottery, obsidian, chert, oven stones, and other materials between
their communities, frequently over hundreds of kilometres. Their material culture exhibits
a greater range of tools, implements, and ornaments than any earlier sites in Near Oceania.
Most remarkable perhaps is the scale and the speed with which the so-called
Lapita peoples colonized the Bismarcks and then, probably in the space of a few
hundred years, went on from the establishment of a host of successful colonies in the
Bismarcks to explore beyond Near Oceania and move out into the Island Melanesia
and Western Polynesia. There they established colonies, possibly with significant
founder populations, in a southeastward flowing arc of islands reaching to Vanuatu
and New Caledonia.
Some prehistorians believe the initial thrust of the Lapita migrations ended at
this point with a 600-year hiatus (Anderson et al. [6] suggest a 1,500-year gap),
before the west–east colonization of the Pacific began from the Lapita colonies of
Western Polynesia. Such a hiatus, we have stressed, would include the severe global
cold period beginning in about 1000 BC, lasting till about 150 BC in Europe but
possibly ending around 400 BC in the southern hemisphere.
7.4 A Translocated Landscape
The size of the founder population needed to create the 80-ha site at Talepakemalai
and of the founder populations needed to populate the primary Lapita-age colonizing targets of Madagascar, New Zealand and Hawaii as well as the later range of
colonies in Island Melanesia and Western Polynesia suggests that the Lapita peoples
were skilled migrants, that they both understood and could provide the basic requirements for successful colonization. Kirch [7] ascribes the phrase “man’s transported
landscape” to ethnobotanist Edgar Anderson who used it, in Kirch’s words “to refer
to the ensemble of crops, weeds, animals and vermin and other biota that accompany all human populations but especially agricultural people as they expand into
new territories” (p. 109). Kirch extends the suggestion of the phrase, commenting,
“The transported landscapes of the Lapita peoples were a fundamental part of what
made them – and in due time their descendants – able to settle virtually every speck
of habitable land in the Pacific Ocean.”
7 The Horticultural Context
appearance of sites ranging from the Mussau islands and Ambitle, to New Ireland,
to the Arewa group off the southern coast of New Britain, and on to Nissan and
Buka in the northern Solomons”. He notes that
Several characteristics render these sites wholly different from anything preceding them in
Near Oceania. First they were good-sized settlements. . .situated on coastal beach terraces
or built out over the shallow lagoons as clusters of stilt-houses. Second, their occupants
made, traded, and used large quantities of earthenware ceramics, of both plain and decorated
varieties. Third, the economic base had expanded from that of the preceding phase in Near
Oceania, utilizing all of the tree crops that had been domesticated in this region, but also
including pigs, dogs and chickens. Fishing strategies were sophisticated, and they employed
a variety of fishhooks, including trolling lures for taking tuna and other pelagic fish on the
open ocean. . .The Lapita people were seafarers, venturing beyond coastal waters to move
substantial quantities of pottery, obsidian, chert, oven stones, and other materials between
their communities, frequently over hundreds of kilometres. Their material culture exhibits
a greater range of tools, implements, and ornaments than any earlier sites in Near Oceania.
Most remarkable perhaps is the scale and the speed with which the so-called
Lapita peoples colonized the Bismarcks and then, probably in the space of a few
hundred years, went on from the establishment of a host of successful colonies in the
Bismarcks to explore beyond Near Oceania and move out into the Island Melanesia
and Western Polynesia. There they established colonies, possibly with significant
founder populations, in a southeastward flowing arc of islands reaching to Vanuatu
and New Caledonia.
Some prehistorians believe the initial thrust of the Lapita migrations ended at
this point with a 600-year hiatus (Anderson et al. [6] suggest a 1,500-year gap),
before the west–east colonization of the Pacific began from the Lapita colonies of
Western Polynesia. Such a hiatus, we have stressed, would include the severe global
cold period beginning in about 1000 BC, lasting till about 150 BC in Europe but
possibly ending around 400 BC in the southern hemisphere.
7.4 A Translocated Landscape
The size of the founder population needed to create the 80-ha site at Talepakemalai
and of the founder populations needed to populate the primary Lapita-age colonizing targets of Madagascar, New Zealand and Hawaii as well as the later range of
colonies in Island Melanesia and Western Polynesia suggests that the Lapita peoples
were skilled migrants, that they both understood and could provide the basic requirements for successful colonization. Kirch [7] ascribes the phrase “man’s transported
landscape” to ethnobotanist Edgar Anderson who used it, in Kirch’s words “to refer
to the ensemble of crops, weeds, animals and vermin and other biota that accompany all human populations but especially agricultural people as they expand into
new territories” (p. 109). Kirch extends the suggestion of the phrase, commenting,
“The transported landscapes of the Lapita peoples were a fundamental part of what
made them – and in due time their descendants – able to settle virtually every speck
of habitable land in the Pacific Ocean.”