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First Millenium BC Transport of Obsidian from New Britain to the Solomon Islands

Abstract

DURING recent archaeological work in New Guinea and the British Solomon Islands we have recovered simple flake artefacts of obsidian associated with a distinctively decorated pottery known as Lapita ware1. This ware had a wide distribution across the south-west Pacific in the first millenium BC, and is known archaeologically from Watom Island, near Rabaul in New Britain, to Tonga, some 4,000 km to the southwest.

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References

  1. Golson, J., Studies in Oceanic Culture History, 2, 67 (B. P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 1971).

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  2. Key, C. A., Nature, 219, 360 (1968).

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  3. Key, C. A., Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania, 4 (1), 47 (1969).

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  4. Ahrens, L. H., and Taylor, S. R., Spectrochemical Analysis (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1961).

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AMBROSE, W., GREEN, R. First Millenium BC Transport of Obsidian from New Britain to the Solomon Islands. Nature 237, 31 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/237031a0

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