The Pottery Trail From Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania

• 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
• ISSN: 1556-4894; 1556-1828
• DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2012.726941

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.