The Archaeology of Vanuatu

Matthew Spriggs

doi:10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199925070.013.015

The Archaeology of Vanuatu

Matthew Spriggs

visibility

1.9K

views

Abstract

The more than 1,000-kilometer stretch of eighty-two inhabited islands comprising the Vanuatu archipelago is centrally situated in the southwest Pacific. These islands were first settled in the late Holocene by Lapita colonists as part of a rapid migratory event that travelled as far east as Tonga. Over three millennia Vanuatu has transformed into an extraordinarily diverse country both linguistically and culturally. The challenge to archaeology is to explain how such diversity has arisen. This chapter addresses a range of themes that are central to the definition and understanding of the timing and nature of initial settlement, levels of interconnectedness, cultural transformation and diversification, human impact on pristine environments, and impacts of natural hazards on resident populations. Vanuatu research contributes to regional debates on human colonization, patterns of social interaction, and the drivers of social change in island contexts.

Key takeaways

AI generated

Vanuatu's archaeological study reveals significant cultural and linguistic diversity stemming from Lapita colonization.
The initial settlement occurred around 3,100-2,700 years ago, with Lapita ceramics confirming human arrival.
Vanuatu experiences frequent natural hazards, influencing settlement patterns and archaeological preservation.
Thirty Lapita sites have been identified, highlighting the widespread nature of colonization across the archipelago.
Research emphasizes the importance of local participation and outreach in archaeological endeavors in Vanuatu.

FAQ's

AI generated

What archaeological evidence supports the timing of initial human settlement in Vanuatu?add

Evidence from radiocarbon dating places the earliest Lapita sites in Vanuatu at approximately 3,100 to 2,700 BP. This aligns with the colonization patterns observed throughout Remote Oceania.

How do volcanic eruptions influence archaeological site preservation in Vanuatu?add

Volcanic activity has led to significant ash accumulation, which can bury and preserve artifacts effectively. Sites like Teouma illustrate how eruptions shape archaeological visibility and preservation.

What roles do Lapita pottery play in understanding inter-island connections?add

Pottery from Vanuatu's Lapita sites shows strong links to Bismarck Archipelago styles, suggesting rapid migration. Decorated vessels served as social markers linking populations during the initial colonization.

What evidence indicates changes in subsistence practices among early Vanuatu colonizers?add

Microfossil analyses reveal that early populations transitioned from relying on local fauna to developing agricultural systems with domesticated plants like yam and taro. This evolution reflects a strategic adaptation to their environment.

How has Vanuatu's cultural identity evolved through archaeological findings?add

Archaeological research has highlighted diverse cultural practices, showing significant adaptation influences throughout millennia. Ongoing projects contribute to a growing awareness of cultural heritage among the ni-Vanuatu population.

Figures

a handful of influential projects that had been carried out through the 1960s and 1970s (Garanger 1972; Shutler, Shutler, and Bedford 2002; Spriggs 1981, 1986; Ward 1979). While significant research projects leading to major reinterpretations were being undertaken in other areas of the Pacific, in Vanuatu, right up to the mid-1990s, fundamental questions relating to initial colonization and settlement of the archipelago and succeeding cultural transformations were still largely unanswered. Much of the country in fact remained an archaeological terra incognita (Bedford 2006), despite the establishment in 1990 of the EU-funded Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Sites Survey (VCHSS), which carried out useful survey work ahead of development projects. The second period of research dates from the lifting of the moratorium in 1994, following the drafting of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre research policy, and has continued to the present. It must be emphasized that while the many projects postdating 1994 have transformed the understanding of the human history of the archipelago, and in a number of aspects th wider region, there still remain many islands where minimal or no archaeology has been undertaken. Certain phases or aspects of the archipelago’s archaeology have been studied in detail, but for many others there is at best only a vague comprehension. Research is, however, starting to move beyond necessary cultural sequence construction to consider wider questions. Figure 1 Vanuatu and sites mentioned in text.

Lapita People matrix. This change might be argued as being commensurate both with increasingly depleted natural resources and the firm establishment of agricultural gardens with a shift to more reliance on garden produce for daily subsistence (Bedford 2006; Spriggs and Bedford 2001).This has been argued elsewhere as a component of a general colonizing strategy (Anderson 1996).

The most constant threat in Vanuatu is that of volcanic activity and over generations a range of coping mechanisms has been developed to deal with ever-present threats (e.g., Cronin, Nemeth, and Neall 2008). Currently active volcanoes are present in the north, center, and south of the archipelago (Siméoni 2009), but archaeological research carried out across Vanuatu indicates that ash-fall, both catastrophic and more benign, features regularly in the stratigraphy of sites on most islands (Bedford 2006, 2007; Bedford and Spriggs 2008). This has important implications for the interpretation of contemporary topography and social relationships across space, often falsely assumed to be long-established but in fact may in many cases have only been relatively recently generated and heavily influenced by volcanic activity. Figure 3 “From a sea voyage, Malekula canoes on their way to Ambrym to trade in pigs, c. 1900”.

There is empirical archaeological and linguistic evidence and a range of specialized cultural practices that indicate Vanuatu’s connections with both adjacent archipelagos and those further afield over the last millennium. Clear connections with islands to the northwest include Banks Islands’ obsidian in the late archaeological record of Tikopia (Kirch and Yen 1982; Spriggs, Bird, and Ambrose 2010). The late prehistoric and historic coil-made bullet- shaped pottery vessels of northern Vanuatu find parallels in manufacturing technique, form, and motif design with the modern forms recorded by Specht (2007: 130) from Buka, in the northern Solomons. The rare cultural practices of head binding and the production of full-circle pig tusks found in northern Vanuatu are also found further west in southern New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago (Figure 4). Figure 4 Evidence of late interaction includes items such as full circle pig’s tusk collected from Malakula, Vanuatu, in the nineteenth century and a jade pendant, Tanna, Vanuatu.

Last updatedAugust 18, 2025

1 of 17

Download research papers for free!

References (83)

Adams, R. 1984. In the Land of Strangers: A Century of European Contact with Tanna, 1774-1874. Pacific Research Monograph No. 9. Canberra: Australian National University.

Anderson, A. 1996. "Adaptive voyaging and subsistence strategies in the early settlement of east Polynesia." Pp. 359-374 in Prehistoric Dispersal of Mongoloids, ed. T. Akazawa and E. Szathmary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anderson, A. 2006. "Crossing the Luzon Strait: Archaeological chronology in the Batanes Islands, Philippines and the regional sequence of Neolithic dispersal." Journal of Austronesian Studies 1(2): 25-44.

Anson, Dimitri. 1983. "Lapita Pottery of the Bismarck Archipelago and its Affinities." PhD thesis. University of Sydney, Australia.

Aubert de la Rüe, Edgar. 1938. "Sur la nature et l'origine probable des pierres portées en pendentifs à l'îles Tanna (Nouvelles Hébrides)." L'Anthropologie 48: 249-260.

Beaglehole, John C. (ed.) 1969. The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery, Edited from the Original Manuscripts. Vol. 2,The Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure 1772-1775. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society.

Bedford, Stuart. 2006. Pieces of the Vanuatu Puzzle: Archaeology of the North, South and Centre. Terra Australis 23. Canberra: Pandanus Press.

Bedford, Stuart. 2007. "Crucial first steps into Remote Oceania: Lapita in the Vanuatu archipelago." Pp. 185-213 in From Southeast Asia to the Pacific: Archaeological Perspectives on the Austronesian Expansion and the Lapita Cultural Complex, ed. C. Chiu and C. Sand. Taipei: Academia Sinica.

Bedford, Stuart, and Geoffrey Clark. 2001. "The Rise and Rise of the Incised and Applied Relief Tradition: a review and reassessment." Pp. 61-74 in The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania, ed. G. Clark, A. Anderson, and T. Sorovi-Vunidilo. Terra Australis 17. Canberra: Australian National University.

Bedford, Stuart, and Jean-Christophe Galipaud. 2010. "Chaînes d'îles: Les Occupation Lapita du nord-Vanuatu/ Chain of Islands: Lapita occupation of Northern Vanuatu." Pp. 122-137 in Lapita: Ancêtres océaniens/Oceanic Ancestors, ed. C. Sand and S. Bedford. Paris: Museé du quai Branly/Somogy.

Bedford, Stuart, and Matthew Spriggs. 2008. "Northern Vanuatu as a Pacific crossroads: The archaeology of discovery, interaction and the emergence of the 'ethnographic present.'" Asian Perspectives 47(1): 95-120.

Bedford, Stuart, Matthew Spriggs, Ralph Regenvanu, and Salkon Yona. 2011b. "Olfala histri wea i stap andanit long graon: Archaeological training workshops in Vanuatu; a profile, the benefits, spin-offs and extraordinary discoveries." Pp. 191-213 in Working Together: Vanuatu Research Histories, Collaborations, Projects and Reflections, ed. N. Thieberger, and J. Taylor. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Bedford, Stuart, Matthew Spriggs, Meredith Wilson, and Ralph Regenvanu. 1998. "The Australian National PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2014. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press -Master Gratis Access; date: 25 February 2015

University-National Museum of Vanuatu Archaeology Project, 1994-7: A preliminary report on the establishment of cultural sequences and rock art research." Asian Perspectives 37(2): 165-193.

Bedford, Stuart, Hallie Buckley, Frédérique Valentin, Nancy Tayles, and Numa Longga. 2011a. "Lapita burials, a new Lapita cemetery and post-Lapita burials from Malakula, Northern Vanuatu, Southwest Pacific." Journal of Pacific Archaeology 2(2): 26-48.

Bedford, Stuart, Matthew Spriggs, Hallie Buckley, Frédérique Valentin, Ralph Regenvanu, and Marcelin Abong. 2010. "Un cimetière de premier peuplement: Le Site de Teouma, sud d'Efate, Vanuatu/ A cemetery of first settlement: Teouma, South Efate, Vanuatu." Pp. 140-161 in Lapita: Ancêtres océaniens/Oceanic Ancestors, ed. C. Sand and S. Bedford. Paris: Museé du quai Branly/Somogy.

Bellwood, Peter. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

Bentley, A., H. Buckley, M. Spriggs, S. Bedford, C. Ottley, G. Nowell, C. Macpherson, and D. Pearson. 2007. "Lapita migrants in the Pacific's oldest cemetery: Isotopic analysis at Teouma, Vanuatu." American Antiquity 72(4): 645- 656. Bolton, Lissant. 1999. "Introduction." Oceania 70: 1-8.

Buckley, Hallie, Nancy Tayles, M. Spriggs, and Stuart Bedford. 2008. "A preliminary report on health and disease in early Lapita skeletons: Possible biological costs of colonization." Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 3(1): 87-114.

Burley, David, Marshall Weisler, and Jian-xin Zhao. 2012. "High precision U/Th dating of first Polynesian settlement." PLoS ONE 7(11): e48769. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048769

Chiu, Scarlett. 2011. "Lapita-scape: Research possibilities using the digital database of Lapita pottery." People and Culture in Oceania 27: 39-63.

Clark, G. 2007. "Specialisation, standardisation and Lapita ceramics." Pp. 289-299 in Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement, ed, S. Bedford, C. Sand, and S. P. Connaughton. Terra Australis 26. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Conte, E., 2006. "Ethnoarchaeology in Polynesia." Pp. 240-258 in Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands, ed. I. Lilley. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Cronin, Shane, Karoly Nemeth, and Vince Neall. 2008. "Volcanism and Archaeology." Pp. 2185-2196 in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, ed. D. Pearsall. New York: Academic Press.

Dickinson, William. 2001. "Petrography and geologic provenance of Sand Tempers in Prehistoric potsherds from Fiji and Vanuatu, South Pacific." Geoarchaeology 16(3): 275-322.

Dickinson, William, S. Bedford, and M. Spriggs.2013. "Petrography of temper sands in 112 reconstructed Lapita pottery vessels from Teouma (Efate): Archaeological implications and relations to other Vanuatu tempers." Journal of Pacific Archaeology 4:1-20.

Dubois, Marie-Joseph. 1996. "Vanuatu seen from Maré." Pp. 79-82 in Arts of Vanuatu, ed. J. Bonnemaison, K. Huffman, C. Kaufmann, and D. Tryon. Bathurst: Crawford House Press.

Eissen, Jean-Philippe, Michel Monzier, and Claude Robin. 1994. "Kuwae, l'eruption volcanique oubliée." La Recherche 270: 1200-1202.

Field, Julie. 2006. "The prehistory of the interior of Vitilevu." Domodomo 19: 7-19.

Fison, Lorimer. 1885. "The Nanga, or sacred stone enclosure of Wainimala, Fiji." Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 14: 14-31.

Flexner, James. 2012. "Mission Archaeology in Vanuatu: Report of the 2011 Preliminary Field Season on Erromango and Tanna." Report on file at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Port Vila. PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2014. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press -Master Gratis Access; date: 25 February 2015

Galipaud, Jean-Christophe. 2010. "Makue and Shokraon: Earliest arrivals and cultural transformations in Northern Vanuatu." Pp. 138-140 in Lapita: Ancêtres océaniens/Oceanic Ancestors, ed. C. Sand and S. Bedford. Paris: Museé du quai Branly/Somogy.

Galipaud, Jean-Christophe, and Mary-Clare Swete Kelly. 2007. "Makué (Aore Island, Santo, Vanuatu): A new Lapita site in the ambit of New Britain obsidian distribution." Pp. 151-162 in Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement, ed. S. Bedford, C. Sand, and S. Connaughton. Terra Australis 26. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Garanger, José. 1972. Archéologie des Nouvelles-Hébrides: Contribution á la connaissance des îles du centre. Publications de la Société des Océanistes, No. 30. Paris: ORSTOM.

Green, Roger. 2003. "The Lapita horizon and traditions-Signature for one set of oceanic migrations." Pp. 95-120 in Pacific Archaeology: Assessments and Prospects, ed. C. Sand. Noumea: Les Cahiers de l'archeologie en Nouvelle-Calédonie 15.

Green, Roger, and Patrick Kirch. 1997. "Lapita exchange systems and their Polynesian transformations: Seeking explanatory models." Pp. 19-37 in Prehistoric Long-Distance Interaction in Oceania: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. M. Weisler. NZAA Monograph 21. Auckland: New Zealand Archaeological Association.

Groube, Leslie. 1971. "Tonga, Lapita pottery and Polynesian origins." Journal of the Polynesian Society 80: 278- 316. Horrocks, Mark, and Stuart Bedford. 2010. "Introduced Dioscorea spp. starch in Lapita and later deposits, Vao Island, Vanuatu." New Zealand Journal of Botany 48(3): 179-183.

Horrocks, Mark, Stuart Bedford, and Matthew Spriggs. 2009. "A short note on banana (Musa) phytoliths in Lapita, immediately post-Lapita and modern period archaeological deposits from Vanuatu." Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 2048-2054.

Huffman, Kirk. 1996. "Trading, cultural exchange and copyright: Important aspects of Vanuatu arts." Pp. 182-194 in Arts of Vanuatu, ed. J. Bonnemaison, K. Huffman, C. Kaufmann, and D. Tryon. Bathurst: Crawford House Press.

Kirch, Patrick V. 1990. "Specialization and exchange in the Lapita complex of Oceania (1600-500 B.C.)." Asian Perspectives 29: 117-133.

Kirch, Patrick V. 1997. The Lapita Peoples. Cambridge: Blackwell.

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

Kirch, Patrick V., and Douglas E. Yen. 1982. Tikopia: The Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier. B. P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 238. Honolulu.

Lightner, Sara, and Anna Naupa. 2005. Histri Blong Yumi Long Vanuatu. 3 vols. plus teacher's guide. Port Vila: Vanuatu Cultural Centre.

Lydon, J. 2006. "Pacific encounters, or beyond the islands of history." Pp. 293-312 in Historical Archaeology, ed. M. Hall and S. W. Silliman. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lynch, John, and Terry Crowley. 2001. Languages of Vanuatu: A New Survey and Bibliography. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Pawley, Andrew. 1981. "Melanesian diversity and Polynesian homogeneity: A unified explanation for language." Pp. 269-309 in Studies in Pacific Languages and Cultures in Honour of Bruce Biggs, ed. J. Hollyman and A. Pawley. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand.

Petchey, Fiona, Matthew Spriggs, Foss Leach, Mike Seed, Christophe Sand, Mike Pietrusewsky, and Kath Anderson. 2011. "Testing the human factor: Radiocarbon dating the first peoples of the South Pacific." Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 29-44.

PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2014. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press -Master Gratis Access; date: 25 February 2015

Pineda, Rufino, and Jean-Christophe Galipaud. 1998. "Evidences archéologiques d'une surrection différentielle de l'île de Malo (archipel du Vanuatu) au cours de l'Holocène récent." C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Sciences de la terre et des planètes 327: 777-779.

Quantin, Paul. 1979. Archipel des Nouvelles Hébrides: Atlas des Sols. Paris: ORSTOM.

Reepmeyer, Christian. 2009. "The Obsidian Sources and Distribution Systems Emanating from Gaua and Vanua Lava in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu." PhD thesis. Australian National University, Canberra.

Regenvanu, Ralph, Peter Kolmas, Martha Yamsiu, David Roe, and Jean-Christophe Galipaud. 1992. Wokabaot Blong Olgeta Blong VCHSS. Port Vila: Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Sites Survey.

Robin, Claude, Michel Monzier, and Jean-Philippe Eissen. 1993. "Giant tuff cone and 12 km-wide associated caldera at Ambrym Volcano (Vanuatu, New Hebrides Arc.)." Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 55: 225- 228. Roe, David, Ralph Regenvanu, Francois Wadra, and Nick Araho. 1994. "Working with cultural landscapes in Melanesia: Some problems and approaches in the formulation of cultural policies." Pp. 115-130 in Developing Cultural Policy in Melanesia: Culture-Kastom-Tradition, ed. L. Lindstrom and G. White. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies. Sand, Christophe, and Stuart Bedford. 2010. Lapita: Oceanic Ancestors, ed. C. Sand and S. Bedford. Paris: Somogy/musée du quai Branly.

Sheppard, Peter. 2010. "Into the great ocean: Lapita movement into Remote Oceania." Pp. 105-117 in Lapita: Oceanic Ancestors, ed. C. Sand and S. Bedford. Paris: Somogy/musée du quai Branly.

Sheppard, Peter, and R. Walter 2006. "A Revised Model of Solomon Islands Culture History." Journal of the Polynesian Society 115(1): 47-76.

Shineburg, D. 1967. They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South West Pacific, 1830-1865. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Shing, Richard. 2013. "Spreading the word: Archaeological awareness and the wider public in Vanuatu." Pp. 189- 197 in Pacific Archaeology: Documenting the Past 50,000 Years, ed. G. Summerhayes and H. Buckley. University of Otago Studies in Archaeology No. 25. Dunedin: Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago. Shutler, Mary Elizabeth, Richard Shutler, Jr., and Stuart Bedford. 2002. "Further detail on the archaeological explorations in the Southern New Hebrides, 1963-1964." Pp. 189-206 in Fifty Years in the Field: Essays in Honour and Celebration of Richard Shutler Jr's Archaeological Career, ed. S. Bedford, C. Sand, and D. Burley. NZAA Monograph 25. Auckland: New Zealand Archaeological Association.

Siméoni, Patricia. 2009. Atlas du Vanouatou (Vanuatu). Port Vila: Éditions Géo-consulte.

Siméoni, Patricia, and Lebot, Vincent. 2012. "Spatial representation of land use and population density: Integrated layers of data contribute to environmental planning in Vanuatu." Human Ecology 40:541-555. DOI 10.1007/s10745- 012-9487-2.

Specht, Jim. 2007. "Small islands in the big picture: The formative period of Lapita in the Bismarck Archipelago." Pp. 51-70 in Oceanic Explorations: Lapita and Western Pacific Settlement, ed. S. Bedford, C. Sand, and S. Connaughton. Terra Australis 26. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Spriggs, M. 1981. "Vegetable Kingdoms: Taro Irrigation and Pacific Prehistory." PhD thesis. Australian National University, Canberra.

Spriggs, M. 1984. "The Lapita cultural complex: Origins, distribution, contemporaries and successors." Journal of Pacific History 19(4): 202-223.

Spriggs, Matthew. 1986. "Landscape, land use, and political transformation in southern Melanesia." Pp. 6-19 in PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2014. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press -Master Gratis Access; date: 25 February 2015

Island Societies: Archaeological Approaches to Evolution and Transformation, ed. P. V. Kirch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Spriggs, Matthew. 1997. The Island Melanesians. Oxford: Blackwell.

Spriggs, Matthew. 2007. "Population in a vegetable kingdom: Aneityum Island (Vanuatu) at European contact in 1830." Pp. 278-305 in The Growth and Collapse of Island Societies, ed. J.-L. Rallu and P. V. Kirch. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

Spriggs, Matthew. 2008. "Ethnographic parallels and the denial of history." World Archaeology 40(4): 538-552.

Spriggs, Matthew. 2011. "Archaeology and the Austronesian expansion: Where are we now?" Antiquity 85: 510- 528.

Spriggs, Matthew, and Stuart Bedford. 2001. "Arapus: A Lapita site at Mangaasi in Central Vanuatu?" Pp. 93-104 in The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania, ed. G. R. Clark, A. J. Anderson, and T. Vunidilo. Terra Australis 17. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Spriggs, Matthew, and Stuart Bedford. 2013. "Is there an Incised Lapita Phase after dentate-stamped pottery ends? Data from Teouma, Efate Island, Vanuatu." Pp. 148-156 in Pacific Archaeology: Documenting the Past 50,000

Years, ed. G. Summerhayes and H. Buckley. University of Otago Studies in Archaeology No. 25. Dunedin: Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago.

Spriggs, Matthew, Roger Bird, and Wallace Ambrose. 2010. "A reanalysis of the Tikopia Obsidians." Archaeology in Oceania 45(1): 31-38.

Summerhayes, Glenn. 2000. Lapita Interaction. Terra Australis 15. Canberra: Australian National University.

Torrence, R., V. Neall, and B. Boyd. 2009. "Volcanism and Historical Ecology on the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea." Pacific Science 63: 507-535.

Tryon, Darrell. 1996. "Dialect chaining and the use of geographical space." Pp. 170-181 in Arts of Vanuatu, ed. J. Bonnemaison, K. Huffman, C. Kaufmann, and D. Tryon. Bathurst: Crawford House Press.

Tryon, D. 1999. "Ni-Vanuatu Research and Researchers." Oceania 70: 9-15.

Valentin, Frédérique, Stuart Bedford, Hallie Buckley, and Matthew Spriggs. 2010. "Lapita burial practices: Evidence for complex body and bone treatment at the Teouma cemetery, Vanuatu, Southwest Pacific." Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 5(1): 1-24.

Valentin, Frédérique, Matthew Spriggs, Stuart Bedford, and Hallie Buckley. 2011. "Vanuatu mortuary practices over three millennia: Lapita to the early European contact period." Journal of Pacific Archaeology 2(2): 49-65.

VNSO 2009. Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2009 Census Reports. http://www.vnso.gov.vu.

Walter, Richard, and Peter Sheppard. 2006. "Archaeology in Melanesia: A case study from the Western Province of the Solomon Islands." Pp. 137-159 in Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands, ed. I. Lilley. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Ward, Graeme. 1979. "Prehistoric Settlement and Economy of a Tropical Small Island Environment: The Banks Islands, Insular Melanesia." PhD thesis. Australian National University, Canberra.

White, Arthur, Trevor Worthy, Stuart Hawkins, Stuart Bedford, and Matthew Spriggs. 2010. "Megafaunal meiolaniid horned turtles survived until early human settlement in Vanuatu, Southwest Pacific." PNAS 107: 15512-15516. Stuart Bedford Stuart Bedford, Australian National University. Matthew Spriggs Matthew Spriggs, Australian National University.