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Lapita Pottery (ca. 1500–500 B.C.)

• 
  Barkcloth Panel (Masi Kesa), late 19th–early 20th century
  Naitauba, Lau Islands, Fiji
  Barkcloth, pigment

  L. 165 in. (419.1 cm)
  Gift of Elizabeth S. Williams, 1977 (1977.395.5)

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Lapita art is best known for its ceramics, which feature intricate repeating geometric patterns that occasionally include anthropomorphic faces and figures.

Related

Cited Works of Art or Images (1)

• 

Timelines (2)

• Oceania, 2000–1000 B.C.
• Oceania, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.

Primary Thematic Essays (2)

• Micronesia
• New Caledonia

Other Thematic Essays (4)

• The Asmat
• European Exploration of the Pacific, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Musical Instruments of Oceania
• Tahiti

Maps (2)

• World, 2000–1000 b.c.
• World, 1000 b.c.–1 a.d.

Index Terms (6)

Geography/Place

• Melanesia

Material and Technique

• Ceramic from South and Southeast Asia
• Plant Fiber
• Textile in Plant Fiber
• Unglazed Ceramic from Oceania

Subject Matter/Theme

• Archaeology from Oceania

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The term Lapita refers to an ancient Pacific culture that archaeologists believe to be the common ancestor of the contemporary cultures of Polynesia, Micronesia, and some areas of Melanesia. The culture takes its name from the site of Lapita in New Caledonia, one of the first places in which its distinctive pottery was discovered. While archaeologists debate the precise region where Lapita culture itself developed, the ancestors of the Lapita people came originally from Southeast Asia. Beginning around 1500 B.C., Lapita peoples began to spread eastward through the islands of Melanesia and into the remote archipelagos of the central and eastern Pacific, reaching Tonga and Samoa by roughly 1000 B.C. The Lapita were a seafaring people who settled primarily on the coast rather than inland and their skilled navigators traversed the ocean with ease.

Lapita art is best known for its ceramics, which feature intricate repeating geometric patterns that occasionally include anthropomorphic faces and figures. The patterns were incised into the pots before firing with a comblike tool used to stamp designs into the wet clay. Each stamp consisted of a single design element that was combined with others to form elaborate patterns. Many Lapita ceramics are large vessels thought to have been used for cooking, serving, or storing food. Some of the designs found on Lapita pottery may be related to patterns seen in modern Polynesian tattoos and barkcloth. In addition to vessels, a number of freestanding pottery figures depicting anthropomorphic and zoomorphic subjects have been unearthed at Lapita sites, as well as a single bone image representing a stylized human figure.

Jennifer Wagelie Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York

Citation

Wagelie, Jennifer. "Lapita Pottery (ca. 1500–500 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lapi/hd_lapi.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Kirch, Patrick Vinton. The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997.

Kirch, Patrick Vinton. On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Suggested Online Resources

Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation Online: News in Science

Simon Fraser University: Report of the 1997 Lapita Project

Related exhibitions and online features

Special Exhibitions (including upcoming, current, and past exhibitions)

Sounding the Pacific: Musical Instruments of Oceania