A Pre-Lapita Structure at Apalo,Arawe Islands,Papua New Guinea

Stilt structures in the inter-tidal zone or over shallow water on fringing reefs are widely accepted as a feature of settlements of the Lapita cultural complex in Near Oceania. Claims for similar structures in a pre-Lapita context at the Apalo site in the Arawe Islands, New Britain, Papua New Guinea, have been queried on several grounds. Re-evaluation of the Apalo evidence, together with 10 additional AMS radiocarbon dates, establishes human activity associated with some form of structure and possibly with a ground stone axe about 400–500 years before the Lapita pottery occupation. The paucity of occupational refuse suggests a non-residential structure perhaps associated with water transport. Comparisons with the older Dongan midden site in the Sepik-Ramu basin suggest stilt structures were probably used there as well. An apparent shift in depositional processes between the pre-Lapita and Lapita use of Apalo could reflect changed sea conditions arising from increased ENSO activity.     

Context and Interpretation: An Archaeology of Cultural Production

This paper examines the construction of modern-world contexts in historical archaeology. To help draw out and understand the social and cultural contexts of capitalism, colonialism, and modernity, and how they may be materially understood, an explanation of the German history of everyday life school (Alltagsgeschichte) is presented. In this approach, the objects of historical study become the everyday cultural interpretations of past people and how these interpretations actively produced and reproduced cultures. This approach is illustrated by a landscape archaeology of the Bordley–Randall site in Annapolis, Maryland.