The Temporal and Spatial patterning of the initial settlement of Samoa

Abstract

Among the Lapita-bearing island groups of the Pacific, Samoa is unusual for having a relatively large land area but only one cultural deposit containing Lapita ceramics. Although it has been proposed that additional Lapita settlements may have been distributed along the coasts of much of the archipelago, investigations have not located these deposits nor reliably dated early Polynesian Plainware deposits older than ∼2500 cal BP. We combine a chronometric hygiene protocol and a GIS-based model of the paleoshoreline to examine the temporal and spatial distribution of pre-2000 cal BP archaeological deposits in the islands. Using the currently available suite of radiocarbon dates, it is apparent that only by ∼2300–2000 cal BP were a number of settlements occupied across the archipelago. Acknowledging that a variety of geomorphological processes have changed the Samoan landscape, we developed a GIS-based model of the ∼3000 cal BP coastlines of Tutuila and Aunu’u Islands, which suggest that suitable sandy coastal flats had not formed in many areas prior to ∼2500 cal BP, hence limiting settlement by Lapita peoples. Our methodology, which combines an evaluation of early radiocarbon dates with a GIS-based paleoshoreline model, offers a valuable means of incorporating temporal and spatial data for the examination of coastal and island colonization.