Australian Museum Journal Archaeological Studies of the Middle and Late Holocene, Papua New Guinea. Part III. The Lagenda Lapita site (FCR/FCS), Talasea area
- Shortform:
- Specht, 2007, Tech. Rep. Aust. Mus., online 20: 105–129
- Author(s):
- Specht, Jim
- Year published:
- 2007
- Title:
- Archaeological Studies of the Middle and Late Holocene, Papua New Guinea. Part III. The Lagenda Lapita site (FCR/FCS), Talasea area
- Serial title:
- Technical Reports of the Australian Museum (online)
- Volume:
- 20
- Start page:
- 105
- End page:
- 129
- DOI:
- 10.3853/j.1835-4211.20.2007.1475
- Language:
- English
- Date published:
- 12 December 2007
- Cover date:
- 12 December 2007
- ISSN:
- 1835-4211
- Publisher:
- The Australian Museum
- Place published:
- Sydney, Australia
- Subjects:
- ANTHROPOLOGY; ARCHAEOLOGY; NEW GUINEA
- Digitized:
- 12 December 2007
- Available online:
- 12 December 2007
- Reference number:
- 1475
- EndNote package:
- EndNote file
- Title page:
- Title page (40kb PDF)
- Complete work:
- Complete work (1703kb PDF)
Abstract
The FCR/FCS site has played a major role in defining the history of Lapita pottery in the Bismarck Archipelago region of Island Melanesia, but hitherto few details have been published about the site. As the site has been largely destroyed, information about it is dependent on surface collections only. The pottery includes a range of dentate-stamped and incised designs comparable with other Lapita sites of the region, particularly in the Arawe Islands of south New Britain. It lacks several features of form and decoration present in the surface collections of FEA on Boduna Island in the Talasea area and those excavated in Area B of the ECA site on Eloaua Island, Mussau group. The start and end dates for pottery use can only be defined by comparisons with other sites. These suggest a starting date of about 3300–3000 cal. bp and an end-date no later than 2900–2600 cal. bp, though several sherds may be of slightly later date.