The Gotland Papers

Abstract

This paper reviews the evidence for large-scale basalt tool manufacturing on Tutuila and the geographical and temporal spread of those tools in the southwest Pacific. Since the first anthropological work in Samoa in the 1920s, Tutuila has been known as a center of basalt tool manufacture. The last decade has seen a doubling of the number of documented lithic manufacture and quarry sites (50), with several now securely dated to ~700-600 cal BP. A later period of 500-300 cal BP may also be indicated. Regional distribution is greatest in the earlier period, but some evidence suggests movement of Tutuila basalt tools in the later period, at least to nearby archipelagoes. Tutuila adzes are documented over a 5600 km distribution from Pohnpei in the northwest to Ma’uke in the southeast. Tutuila has been long recognized as a major production and distribution center for high-quality basalt1 tools in the southwest Pacific (e.g., Best et al. 1992, Clark 2002, Clark 1993, Clark et al. 1997, Di Piazza and Pearthree 2001, Leach and Witter 1990, Weisler and Kirch 1996, Winterhoff 2003). This has elsewhere been termed the Tutuila Basalt Export Industry (Addison and Asaua 2006). This paper first reviews the evidence for tool production on Tutuila, then examines where Tutuila products have been found.