Samoan artefact provenance reveals limited artefact transfer within and beyond the archipelago

Abstract

We summarise previous provenance research of Samoan lithic and ceramic artefacts, noting the timing and relative frequency of artefact transfers. Our summary suggests few intra and extra-archipelago artefact transfers for the first two millennia, but that these modestly increased in the last 800 years of the prehistoric sequence. The late distribution of Samoan basalt around the Pacific was spatially expansive, but proportionally small. These results have implications for explaining both the development of Polynesian society and basalt artefact exchange