Lapita And Pacific Biodiversity

Question 1

What happened?

Answer 1

1. Austronesians PULLED into the “Voyaging Nursery” (Boats of some kind and crossing to islands)
2. Language, culture spread amongst the populations that were ALREADY THERE
   2.1 Already had voyaging technology and interacting but lots of linguistic diversity
   2.2 Austronesian possibly became common language between everyone
3. Created an amalgam (fusion of two cultures together) that was ancestral to Oceanic culture
   3.1 Could have been simple trading relationship or people marrying and staying (Children inherit language of both parents)
   3.2 Forager/fishers (Forage marine environments)
   3.3 Tree/Root croppers

Question 2

“Lapita” Culture Emerges on the coastlines of the Bismarcks ca. 3500 BP

Answer 2

1. Ceramics similar to Halmahera, Sulawesi
2. “Dentate stamped” designs
3. Mix with Papuan traditions (Tree horticulture, use of Papuan plants (Taro, yam); Earth ovens; Genetic markers (80% Papuan genome and 20% Austronesian speakers))
4. Bismarcks jumping off point for other cultures

Question 3

Talepakemalai Site, Mussau Island, 3500 BP

Answer 3

1. First picture shows deposit of 1 m with water being pumped out
   1.1 Water is water table (Water table is freshwater trapped under surface of sand)
   1.2 Original habitat around sand
2. Second picture shows wooden stilts for houses
3. Third picture shows diagram of stilt house slowly being put under shoreline as waterline dropped
   3.1 Now all that is left is the stilts under modern land
   3.2 Found pottery first and then stilt houses (Only place that has this)

Question 4

Dentate-Stamped pottery

Answer 4

1. Little wooden stamps made and at end shaped like tooth hence dentate name
2. Poke material to make design (Similar to how they tattoo people)
3. Ovals look like eyes (Duplicated face motif with nose like lines as well)
4. Lime powder on it as well to go into poked marks and put red skip over it (New red with white design that looked like lace)

Question 5

Talepakemalai subsistence

Answer 5

1. First for Lapita people
2. Marine shell, fish bones, dolphin (Canarium nuts; Coconit; Pandanus; Fishhooks; Pearl shell “peelers” (Used to peel taro, yams; Also shred coconut))
3. Produce foods not for storing but can transport them and it’ll last a few days

Question 6

Non-Austronesian Neighbors, ca. 3500 BP

Answer 6

1. Non-Lapita pottery, ca 3000 BP in New Guinea (May reflect local invention by Papuans; Or, evidence of Pre-Lapita Austronesians)

Question 7

Lapita in Near Oceania, ca 3200-2800 BP

Answer 7

1. Big moment for expansion of people in Pacific Islands
2. Western colonization of Lapita people
3. Few hundred years islands discovered and colonized
4. Mussau to Samoa (All pottery (Lapita) looks the same; Bismarcks looks like New Caledonia)
5. Either large groups or small group who traveled quickly
   5.1 Eat large marine mollusks (Don’t run away quick)
   5.2 Strandlooping pattern of subsistence (Stay there and take best resources and move on)

Question 8

Lapita Dispersal into Remote Oceania

Answer 8

1. Chronology: (Skip Solomon Islands; Santa Cruz/Reef Islands 3200 BP; Vanuatu 3100 BP; New Caledonia 3100 BP; Fiji 3200 BP; Tonga 2900 BP; Futuna 2800 BP; Samoa 2800 BP)
2. Over 4000 km in 300 years (Roughly length of continental US)
3. Radiocarbon dating problems because dates overlap a lot

Question 9

Why voyage?

Answer 9

1. Population pressure (Too many people move to next island; Unlikely because not a lot of people)
2. “Strandloopers” - focused on marine food
3. Elder-younger lineage
   3.1 Genealogy thought to come from father line or mother line so elder (sibling) is first born and head of family
   3.2 Incentive for younger brothers and sisters to expand outwards to find and grow lineage somewhere else

Question 10

Lapita Settlements of Remote Oceania

Answer 10

1. Cemeteries (Teouma, Vanuatu; Sigatoka Dunes, Fiji)
2. Lots of information of people themselves from skeletons and funeral remains
3. Wear patterns, funerary preparation, chemical analysis of teeth and bones to find what ate, etc.
4. Excavate for years very slowly to get as much information as can

Question 11

Lapita Settlements of Remote Oceania: Examples of Cemeteries

Answer 11

1. Cranium missing and replaced with rock
2. Cranium by self in ceramic vessel
   2.1 Sometimes close but not exactly
   2.2 Can’t match heads to bodies (Possible religious reasons; Head kept in like urn; Head in some cultures thought to keep soul so want to keep protected)
3. Left out to decompose and then when body was decomposed enough they were bundled up, head removed, and placed in grave (Possible heads swapped when put back in brain later)

Question 12

Lapita Diet: The Teouma Data

Answer 12

1. Isotopes (C and N)
   1.1 Mixed strategy of marine and terrestrial resources (First ate marine foods then cultivated garden like foods)
   1.2 More horticulture decades after settlement
2. Dental calculus microfossils (Phytoliths and starch)
   2.1 Coconut, Breadfruit, Canarium nuts, Bananas, Taro, Yams, Palm and Pandanus fibers for making mats and things like that and using mouth to rip fibers

Question 13

Lapita Ceramic Design

Answer 13

1. Just based on looking on vessels what were they for
   1.1 Not for cooking because hard to clean (Ridges)
   1.2 Space dedicated to decorative band
2. If used for food, used for presentation
3. 90% vessels plain for cooking and other basic uses
4. Patterned ceramics used to show off, identification of groups of people (Based on genealogy)

Question 14

Connections between settlements

Answer 14

1. Ceramic designs (Southern, Western, Eastern Lapita Ceramic styles (Possibly suggest different trading circles))
2. Imported ceramics
3. Volcanic glass trading

Question 15

Decline of Lapita

Answer 15

1. Designs simplify (Same design quickly inscribed)
2. Fewer decorative pots
3. Populations move inland
4. Less interaction

Question 16

Lapita as “Ancestral Oceanic Society”

Answer 16

1. Older-younger sibling rank
2. Ranked society
3. Kinship groups (Larger “clans”; Hereditary chiefs)

Question 17

Title Slide

Answer 17

1. Some human variability
2. Solomon Islands

Question 18

Whole-Genome Analysis (Mattisoo-Smith et al. 2015)

Answer 18

1. East Asian derived populations migrated through the Bismarck Archipelago ca. 4000 years ago (Admixture of 80% Papuan, 20% Austronesian)
2. East Asian derived populations migrated to Remote Oceania (Admixture of ~87% Austronesian, 13% Papuan)
3. B4a1a1a is the Polynesian motif where most people had it
4. Australia very different than other islands
5. Further into Remote Oceania less genetic diversity (Descended from fewer ancestors)
6. New Caledonia people came from all over

Question 19

Body Size

Answer 19

1. When talk about peoples bodies talk about phenotypes
2. Still talk about how body reacts to world around you (Offspring will benefit from phenotype)
3. Pacific Islanders are bigger people just in general (What caused them to be so big on an island?)
4. What is it to be big?
   4.1 From chart 2cm taller than Europeans
   4.2 From chart 15 kg heavier than Europeans and Asian Indians
   4.3 From chart fat free mass ~10 kg heavier than other two

Question 20

Study of the effects of voyaging on body size

Answer 20

1. BMI (body mass index)
2. Subcutaneous fat layer thickness
   2.1 Bigger bodies stay warmer and have more extra calories in stored fat (They lose less weight on the trip)
   2.2 The result is even more pronounced for women (Bigger bodied women stay warmer and arrive healthier than their smaller bodied relatives (When smaller skip period when lose weight so when bigger keep period and menstrual cycle and bounce back sooner after so carry baby first and pass on bigger genes first)
   2.3 On boat with wind, splashed with cold water so shivering, and fighting rocking of boat makes you lose weight

Question 21

Skin Color - The research of Nina Jablonski

Answer 21

1. Your skin’s pigment protects you from UV radiation
   1.1 Too much UV causes neural tube defects
   1.1.1 Neural tube defect is the eventual spinal cord and brain in a fetus (Prenatal vitamins have folic acid which is greeny leafy plants and when gestating need folic acid so gamete can make neural tube)
   1.1.2 Too much UV radiation breaks down folic acid in bloodstream so prenatal vitamin gives extra folic acid to lessen the chance of neural tube defect (baby will abort)
2. Human ancestors had pigmented skin, and evolved depigmentation in order to adapt to higher latitudes (High latitudes have less sunlight, therefore less Vitamin D (Causing vitamin D deficiency))

Question 22

Skin Color in Australia, Bismarcks, and Remote Oceania

Answer 22

1. Gene MFSD12 arose 500,000 years ago (in Africa); mutations of that gene allow carriers to produce eumelanin, an intensely dark pigment
2. Probably emerged in Africa and was carried to Australia, Bismarcks, and Remote Oceania
3. Other genes also code for pigment

Question 23

Post-Lapita in the Bismarcks and Papua New Guinea

Answer 23

Talk shift to this

Question 24

Ceramic Transitions

Answer 24

1. Simpler design and loss of importance of Lapita culture speculation
2. Mussau (Dentates lost by 3000 BP)
3. New Ireland (Dentates lost by 2300 BP)
4. Lost pottery
   4.1 Mussau by 1000 BP
   4.2 New Ireland by 1000-500 BP
   4.3 New Britain by 500 BP (When culture stops making pottery means they likely went back to an Earth oven, fire, citrus juice for cooking (Possibly too costly or social component went away) (Doesn’t mean society declined))

Question 25

What is going on?

Answer 25

1. Post-Lapita pottery diversifies
2. Specialized food gathering, trading, artifacts
3. Volcanic disruptions
   3.1 Communities contract ca. 2000 BP (Stop interacting with each other and become more isolated)
   3.2 Follow their own trajectories (Sharing of culture slows down)

Question 26

Modern Anthropological Documentation

Answer 26

1. Malinowski (1920s)
   1.1 Kula network of the Trobriand Islanders
   1.2 Mailu traders of Southern Papua coast (Learns language and writes down what he learned)
2. Described islands with red lines representing interaction routes and traders had trading partners that every year or other year trade particular valuable things with partners
   2.1 Shells with feathers as jewelry traded with something back
   2.2 Everything had a name and represented something important
   2.3 Also traded food products, marriage partners to meet each other, and other community engagement activities

Question 27

The development of Kula Ring

Answer 27

1. Prior to 500 BP some pottery in the Trobriands comes from New Guinea Mainland
2. Trading of pottery and shell valuables? (Arm band with feathers hanging off now on rope)
3. Remnant of pre-Lapita and Lapita social connections (Remainder of Lapita interaction)

Question 28

The Solomon Islands

Answer 28

1. Mostly skipped by Lapita people
2. Battles fought there in WW2 (Sunken ships, U boats, airplanes, battle sites throughout islands)
3. Why Americans there? (Island hopping and fighting Japan so create bunkers and air strips to be able to get to Japan (Didn’t make it))
4. Highly vegetative and hilly and hot (Struggle to survive being there outside of fighting part)
5. People now go there to dive and see ships and stuff
6. Islands used to be connected as mountain peaks and have sunk down into smaller islands (Lots of lagoons)
7. Not heavily touristy

Question 29

Modern Cultures of the Solomon Islands

Answer 29

1. Tribal groups
2. Not stratified
3. “Big Men” system (No inherited title; do activities to elevate status)
4. Village elders
5. Arranged marriages
6. Age cohorts of boys/men
7. Ceremonies that happen throughout life based on age (Boys age 10 circumcised as group and that becomes their group to do achievements with throughout life)

Question 30

Solomon Blondes!

Answer 30

1. 10% of population
2. Gene TYRP1
3. Random mutation that makes their hair blonde (Papua New Guinea and Australians have different blond hair gene)
4. Very isolated population showcased

Question 31

Solomon Island Living

Answer 31

1. Gardening (Yam, Taro, Sweet potato, Tree crops) (Roasting Breadfruit on coals)
2. Fishing (Reef spearing; Kite fishing (No hook needed use spider web as lure))