Is there a 'Lapita diet'? A comparison of Lapita and post-Lapita skeletal samples from four Pacific Island archaeological sites

Abstract

After 1,550 bce, Austronesian-speaking people arrived in the Bismarck Archipelago in northeast New Guinea and left behind the remnants of what is now known as the Lapita cultural complex. Hailing from island Southeast Asia (ISEA), Lapita populations rapidly sailed east from New Guinea, crossing the divide between Near and Remote Oceania around 1,150 bce (Figure 17.1, Chapter 17) (Kirch, 1997; Spriggs, 1997; Summerhayes, 2001; Galipaud and Swete Kelly, 2007; Galipaud, 2010). This migration marked the arrival of the first humans into the previously uninhabited region east of the Solomon Islands, the western boundary of Remote Oceania. Over a period of about 300 years, Lapita populations settled Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa (Kirch, 1997). As these populations sailed eastward, they faced progressively less ecologically diverse environments in which to establish their communities. Adaptation to these island environments was essential for the successful Lapita settlement of the western Pacific Islands (Kirch, 1997; Spriggs, 1997).