The Pottery Trail From Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania

A set of unique circumstances created a durable archaeological record of ancient human migration from Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania, useful as a global model of population dispersals. Finely made pottery with a very specific decorative signature is found in multiple locations in the Philippines a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of island and coastal archaeology 2013-01, Vol.8 (1), p.17-36
Main Authors: Carson, Mike T., Hung, Hsiao-chun, Summerhayes, Glenn, Bellwood, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Austronesian diaspora
Ceramics
Chronology
Disease transmission
Geographic mobility
Lapita
Mariana Islands
Migration
Neolithic Age
Oceanic settlement
Philippines
Population dynamics
Pottery
Southeast Asia
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Summary:A set of unique circumstances created a durable archaeological record of ancient human migration from Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania, useful as a global model of population dispersals. Finely made pottery with a very specific decorative signature is found in multiple locations in the Philippines and western Oceania, constituting a shared cultural trait that can be traced, both geographically and chronologically, to a specific homeland. Especially important for human migration models, this decorated pottery is linked to a system of cultural origin, so the spread as a diagnostic tradition can be related to the spread of a cultural group. Even more important, this decorated pottery appeared with the first peopling of the remote Pacific Islands, thus providing a clear and datable chronicle of where and when people spread from one location to another. The pottery trail points to a homeland in the Philippine Neolithic about 2000-1800 BC, followed by expansion into the remote Mariana Islands 1500 BC, and then slightly later into the Lapita world of Melanesia and Polynesia.
ISSN:1556-4894
1556-1828
DOI:10.1080/15564894.2012.726941