Lapita culture

Lapita culture was a prehistoric Pacific cultural tradition known for dentate-stamped pottery and associated with the settlement of Remote Oceania around 3000 years ago.

Lapita pottery: Ceramics decorated with distinctive impressions made by toothed stamps, characteristic of Lapita archaeological sites. Its elaborate dentate-stamped designs provide the culture’s most recognizable archaeological marker.
Outrigger canoe: A watercraft stabilized by a lateral float attached to the hull by crossbeams. Such vessels illustrate the maritime technology that made inter-island movement possible.
Bismarck Archipelago: A volcanic island group northeast of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, and nearby islands. Some of the earliest Lapita sites occur in this archipelago.
Lapita site of Talepakemalai: An early Lapita settlement site on Eloaua Island in the Mussau group of Papua New Guinea. Its early ceramics and location help document the culture’s western Pacific beginnings.
Polynesian culture: The diverse cultural traditions of Polynesian peoples across the central and eastern Pacific. Lapita expansion preceded the later development of Polynesian societies.
Dentate-stamped pottery: Pottery ornamented by pressing a toothed implement into wet clay. This technique produced the patterned impressions most associated with Lapita ceramics.
Oceanic navigation: Methods for finding routes across open water using environmental cues and accumulated knowledge. Long-distance settlement required reliable ways to navigate between widely spaced islands.
Lapita homeland: The debated region in the western Pacific where distinctive Lapita cultural practices first took shape. Its location remains central to explaining how Lapita traditions emerged.
Lapita site of Vanuatu: A group of archaeological sites in Vanuatu containing pottery and other evidence of Lapita settlement. These sites mark Lapita expansion into islands farther east.
Oceanic languages: A branch of the Austronesian language family spoken across much of the Pacific. The spread of Oceanic languages broadly parallels the settlement associated with Lapita.

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