Cochrane (2017) Ancient Fiji Melting Pot of The Southwest Pacific

Ancient Fiji: Melting Pot of the Southwest Pacific
Oxford Handbooks Online

Ethan E. Cochrane
The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania
Edited by Ethan E. Cochrane and Terry L. Hunt
Print Publication Date: May 2018 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of Oceania

Online Publication Date: Dec 2017 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199925070.013.016
Abstract and Keywords
Like the other archipelagos of Remote Oceania, Fiji was colonized by Lapita voyagers
approximately 1000 b.c. Over the subsequent three millennia, Fijian populations
underwent considerable change, resulting in the unique cultural, biological, and linguistic
characteristics that differentiate Fiji from populations in both Polynesia to the east and
Melanesia to the west. This essay summarizes the Lapita archaeology of the archipelago
and later culture history including change in ceramic horizons, the spatial scale of
interaction within the archipelago, and potential migrations into Fiji from other island
groups. The rise of Fijian chiefdoms is also examined with these polities closely linked to
increasing competition, fortifications, and defendable agricultural resources. Finally,
artifactual, linguistic, and biological data characterizing Fijian populations are examined,
and it is concluded that the generalization of Fiji as “not quite Melanesian, not quite
Polynesian” can best be explained within a cultural transmission framework that
separates analogous and homologous similarity.
Keywords: Fiji, Lapita, migration, Melanesia, Polynesia, fortifications, chiefdom, cultural transmission
Between Melanesia and Polynesia

EVERY culture-area map of the Pacific places Fiji (18,274 sq. km of land) in Melanesia,
just outside the western boundary of Polynesia, and a few maps even exclude the Fijian
islands from both Polynesia and Melanesia by placing the group within its own box or
boundary. While cultural-biological-geographic categories such as Melanesia can be
useful shorthands, they are generalizations (Clark 2003, Terrell 2012) that may mask
much variation of interest to archaeologists. This is certainly the case for Fiji, where the
history of archaeological, linguistic, and biological research suggests that for over three
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millennia of human occupation, these islands’ inhabitants maintained connections to both

the east and the west, moved throughout the archipelago, spoke multiple closely related
languages, and developed a material culture and social institutions neither typically
Melanesian nor Polynesian, a history Patrick Kirch (2000: 156) captures by describing Fiji
as a “between place.”
Fiji’s characterization as neither wholly Melanesian nor Polynesian is more interesting

when considered in light of the original colonization of Remote Oceania by Near Oceanic
populations with Lapita pottery (see Terrell’s essay). These groups arrived in Vanuatu and
the Reef and Santa Cruz Islands, New Caledonia, Tonga and Sāmoa, as well as Fiji,
approximately 3,000 years ago (see Rieth and Cochrane’s essay), sharing a similar
material culture including intricately decorated Lapita pottery, lithic tools, and shell
ornaments, likely speaking a series of closely related languages or dialects (see Pawley’s
essay), and biological characteristics (including those of human commensal species),
indicative of demic biological variation, multiple population movements from Near to
Remote Oceania or both (Kirk et al. 1987; Lum et al. 2002; Matisoo-Smith and Robins
2004; Pietrusewsky 1997; Wollstein et al. 2010). So while the original inhabitants of Fiji
were part of a “community of culture” (Golson 1961) that spread from the (p. 207) Reef
and Santa Cruz Islands in the west to Samoa in the east, at some point populations in the
east (Samoa and Tonga) became more Polynesian, while western populations (New
Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Southeast Solomons) became (or stayed) more Melanesian,
and Fijian populations, geographically in the middle, became clearly not one or the other.
This essay first examines the culture history of Fiji, focusing on the archipelago’s
colonization by populations with Lapita pottery and the subsequent three millennia of
ceramic variation that archaeologists have used to mark chronological change. The
middle section looks at three research themes that arise from Fiji’s culture history: (1)
interaction and mobility in the mid-sequence, (2) increasing social complexity and
competition, and (3) ethnohistoric and historical archaeological perspectives. Finally, the
essay explores the perennial question of Fiji’s between-ness (Burley 2013) and offers a
research program to resolve it.
Fijian Culture History
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Lapita Colonization of Fiji
Populations from the west, part of the movement of groups from Near to Remote Oceania
beginning around 3000 cal. B.P., discovered Fiji at approximately the same time as first
landfalls were being made in Vanuatu, the Reef and Santa Cruz Islands, and New
Caledonia (Sheppard et al. 2015). The earliest securely dated site in Fiji is Matanamuani
(VL 21/5) on Naigani Island with charcoal (identified as grass, reed, or palm frond) from a
fire feature dated to 3070‒2770 cal. B.P. (2 sd) (Irwin et al. 2011). Dating analyses from
several other sites throughout the archipelago have returned similar or slightly later
earliest ages (all 2 sd), although not all of these age ranges are from feature contexts or
material identified to taxa: 2866‒2771 cal. B.P. for Bourewa, southwest Viti Levu (Nunn
and Petchey 2013); 2861‒2748 cal. B.P. at the Tavua Village site in the Mamanuca Islands
(Cochrane et al. 2011); 3140‒2960 cal. B.P. for Vorovoro Island off the north coast of
Vanua Levu (Burley 2012); and 2922‒2719 cal. B.P. from Qaranipuqa rock shelter on
Lakeba Island in eastern Fiji (Best 1984). All of these date ranges are associated with
Lapita pottery deposits (Figure 10.1).
The Lapita assemblages in Fiji are similar to those found throughout Remote Oceania.
Often these deposits are located on coastal beach ridges (Dickinson 2014), sometimes on
smaller islands off the main land masses of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Patrick Nunn and
colleagues have reconstructed the paleogeography of several Fijian Lapita sites noting
the likely presence of reef resources and beaches with canoe landings in proximity (e.g.,
Nunn et al. 2007, Nunn and Heorake 2009). Similarly, Alex Morrison and colleagues
(2017) undertook a detailed landform reconstruction of the Tavua Village Lapita site in
the Mamanuca Islands off Viti Levu’s west coast. Today that Lapita deposit is 1 m
(p. 208) below the surface behind the contemporary coastal village. Through an extensive
coring program coupled with sediment analyses, radiocarbon dating, topographic

mapping, and geological simulation, Morrison and colleagues determined that the Lapita-
age settlement likely existed on a sand spit or small barrier islet safely above the mean
high water mark, and with a lagoon environment inland that would have provided
subsistence resources in addition to the fringing reef. Over the course of 1,400 years the
sand spit prograded, eventually closing off any potential tidal opening and leading to
sediment infilling of the back beach lagoon areas.
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At the Tavua Village Site,

Lapita-age populations
subsisted on a variety of
marine fauna including
shellfish, reef and benthic
fish, and turtle. Terrestrial
animals make up a much
smaller percentage of total
specimens and include the
Polynesian rat (Rattus
Click to view larger
exulans), spiny rat (R.
Figure 10.1 Map of Fiji showing islands (italics),
praetor), and iguana
archaeological sites, and the boundary between
western and eastern Fijian dialects (dashed line). (Brachylophus sp.). Bird
bones were also identified,
but in relatively small proportions, as is common for archaeological sites in the
Mamanuca and Yasawa Island groups. A focus on marine animal subsistence is a pattern
found on several other small islands in Fiji (Jones et al. 2007, Burley 2012) and likely
influenced initial settlement locations (Nunn 2009). Other Lapita age faunal assemblages
from cave sites on the larger islands contain terrestrial taxa such as fruit bat (Pteropus
sp.), chicken (Gallus gallus), and several species extirpated or driven to extinction
including crocodilians (Volia athollandersoni), a megapode (Megapodius alimentum), and
other terrestrial birds (Worthy and Anderson 2009). Of the commensal species that
variably accompanied Lapita-age voyagers throughout (p. 209) Remote Oceania—pig,
dog, and chicken—only chicken is incontrovertibly associated with Fijian Lapita deposits,
although the other species appear at later times (Matisoo-Smith 2007).
Horticultural plants brought by Fiji’s early colonists are also variably distributed across
the archipelago. At the Bourewa Lapita site, Mark Horrocks and Patrick Nunn (2007)
identified microfossils (e.g., starch grains, xylem cells) of introduced taro (Colocasia
esculenta) and lesser yam (Dioscorea esculenta). Corroborating support for human
transportation of horticultural plants is found in the presence of likely introduced land
snails in Lapita-age deposits of the Yanuca site on Viti Levu (Hunt 1981). Such snails
prefer anthropophilic habitats provided by horticultural plants. Additional data on
paleoflora is provided by a series of sediment cores excavated across the archipelago
(summarized in Hope et al. 2009) that show the effects of human arrival including a
dramatic decrease in sago palm (Metroxylon sp.), as well as increased ferns, grasses, and
charcoal particles, all likely associated with removal of the native forest and in some
areas swidden gardening (Roos et al. 2016).
Lapita-age material culture in Fiji is, unsurprisingly, dominated by ceramics, both

decorated and plain. The decorated Lapita ceramics vary with some assemblages
containing a great many decorated sherds and complex motifs, and other assemblages
containing small amounts of decorated sherds with simple motifs. Assemblages with
abundant decorated sherds (e.g., Nunn et al. 2007) often include the same motifs found in
Lapita assemblages of the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia (Anson
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1983, Best 1984, Mead et al. 1973). These similarities are a product of cultural
transmission among the colonizing populations of Remote Oceania and their immediate
homelands in Near Oceania. The great majority of the decorated Lapita sherds in Fiji
come from locally manufactured vessels indicating the transmission of ideas without the
movement of pots (Clark and Kennett 2009, Kennett et al. 2004). Lapita assemblage
vessel forms include bowls, some with carinated shoulders, flat-bottom dishes, globular
pots with and without carinated shoulders, bottles with restricted openings, and pot
stands. The diversity of vessel forms varies across sites and depends upon assemblage
completeness (see e.g., Burley and Dickinson 2004). In addition, Fijian Lapita material
culture includes other objects similar to those found in Lapita deposits throughout
Remote Oceania, such as shell rings and plaques, long-units or cylinders of shell with
facets along their length and perforations at either end, hammerstones, coral abraders,
metamorphic stone adzes, red ochre, obsidian, and flakes and cores of basalt, chert, and
quartzite.
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Ceramic Chronology
Changes in Fijian ceramics after colonization have been traditionally summarized in a

number of periods, with the first cultural chronology (Gifford 1951) simply using the
terms Early, Middle, and Late. E. W. Gifford’s Fiji excavations did not recover any Lapita
ceramics, but a few years later he and Richard Shutler Jr. would be the first to excavate
and identify Lapita Pottery at the site of Lapita in New Caledonia. Gifford’s Fijian
(p. 210)
pottery chronology was later refined by Roger Green (1963) with the addition of Lapita
ceramics from Sigatoka, pre-dating Gifford’s early period. Green defined four phases for
Fiji, beginning with the Sigatoka Phase (~2650‒2050 B.P.) determined by the presence of
decorated Lapita ceramics. This was followed by the Navatu Phase (2050‒850 B.P.),
comprising carved-paddle impressed ceramics along with ceramics with incised,
appliqué, and other surface modifications. The Vuda Phase (850‒100 B.P.) follows with a
decrease in paddle-impressed ceramics and an increase in incised, appliqué, and finger-
pinching surface modifications. Finally, Rā Phase (100 B.P.—present) ceramics have
increasingly complex incised and appliqué patterns and include new vessel forms, such as
double-spouted jars.
While Green’s four ceramic phases have been modified, these units are still referenced in
almost all subsequent work. Figure 10.2 displays how archaeologists have both expanded
the defining ceramic attributes of Green’s phases and changed their temporal
boundaries. For example, Simon Best (1984) produced a fairly extensive reworking of
Green’s chronology, as indicated by shading in Figure 10.2, with Periods 1a and 1b
equivalent to Green’s Sigatoka Phase. These periods, and the synonymous Early and Late
Lapita of David Burley (2003), divide Lapita assemblages into those that have complex
dentate decorations and those that have simple dentate designs. Although Green (1963)
originally described the Navatu Phase as stemming directly from the Sigatoka Phase,
some archaeologists in Fiji now suggest that ceramic change is more accurately
described by noting an additional period before the Navatu Phase, the Fijian Plainware
Phase (Best 1984; Burley and Clark 2003). These assemblages have high proportions of
undecorated vessels, some slipping, and wipe-marks around the collar made with a
fibrous material, and a few other surface modifications. Plainware assemblages typically
consist of only one or a few jar and bowl forms, mostly differentiated by minor rim
variations (Clark 1999: 221). Clark (1999: 226) states that carved paddle-impressed
wares belong to these assemblages, and Best agrees but confines the appearance of
carved paddle impressing to the end of the Plainware period. Burley (2003: 239) also
notes that small amounts of punctuating and other decorative techniques occur in the
Plainware assemblages in western Fiji. Burley and Best argue that the Fijian Plainware
period ends with major ceramic changes. The transition between Fijian Plainware and the
Navatu Phase is described as “the only major ceramic change in the Fijian
sequence” (Best 2002: 28; see also Best 1984: 654–655) and “so abrupt that alternative
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explanations [besides ethnic group replacement] are difficult to fathom” (Burley 2003:
312).
While Best and Clark place the Plainware-Navatu transition at different times (Figure
10.2), their difference in timing may be a result of the slightly different period definitions
each archaeologist employs. Note, for example, that the minor change in Best’s Period III
(indicated by hashed line) occurs at a similar time as Clark’s Mid-Sequence to Navatu
Phase transition. If Best admitted carved paddle impressing into his Period II definition,
then he might reconceive his Plainware-Navatu transition at essentially the same time as
(p. 211) Clark’s (i.e., about 1800 B.P.). Best does identify some new ceramic variants at
this time as indicated by the dashed line at about 1700 B.P. (Best 2002: 17). A related,
but generally unremarked (with the exception of Hunt 1986), problem with Fijian ceramic
periodization schemes is that they are typically constructed without reference to the
processes that explain ceramic variation and therefore also without clear reasons for
choosing particular dimensions of ceramic variation to define periods. This is linked to a
problematical lack of general theory with ramifications for how we explain variation in
the archaeological record.
(p. 212) The Navatu Phase

in Fiji is generally defined
by carved paddle-
impressed ceramics,
incising, appliqué, and
finger-pinched decoration,
often executed on the
shoulders of jars.
Archaeologists also note
that a new vessel form
originates in the Navatu
Phase, an everted neck
cooking pot, typically
called a kuro. Burley
(2003: 238) has identified
Figure 10.2 Comparison of Fijian ceramic
additional new vessel
sequences. Period names (italicized) are by authors forms in his Navatu Phase
at column heads. Brief descriptions of ceramic ceramics from the
characteristics are in plain text. Periods which have
been similarly defined by different authors are Sigatoka Dunes including
shaded similarly. Dashed lines are less significant “several new jar and bowl
divisions noted by the authors.
types, handled pots,
flattened trays, and
spouted vessels.”
Both Best (2002: 30–31; 1984: 655–656) and Burley (2003: 312, and see Burley and
Edinborough 2014, Burley 2013) suggest that ceramic change at their Plainware-Navatu
transitions is possibly a result of a new human population inhabiting the southern Lau
Page 7 of 28

Group, or the Sigatoka Sand dunes, respectively. Clark (1999: 221) also identifies “a
relatively sharp break” in ceramic similarity at ca. 1800 B.P. He, however, does not
attribute this to different human populations, but rather tentatively to low levels of social
interaction and changing economic patterns from ca. 2300 to 1900 B.P. (Clark 1999: 219–
228).
The Vuda Phase was conceived by Green (1963) to begin after Navatu and last until the
time of sustained interaction between Fijians and Europeans in the early nineteenth
century. Since Green, archaeologists have placed the beginning of the Vuda Phase at
different times (see Figure 10.2), and it seems likely that ceramics described as Vuda
Phase increase in frequency at different times in different parts of Fiji. Vuda Phase
assemblages exhibit a gradual increase in the frequency of incised surfaces and a
concomitant decrease in paddle-impressed surfaces over time. Frost (1979: 68) notes that
the Vuda Phase may be more readily defined by a “sudden decrease” in paddle-impressed
surfaces than an increase in incised motifs, as incising also occurs in assemblages by at
least 1700 B.P. Vuda Phase assemblages also exhibit punctate (i.e., end-tool produced)
surface modifications and appliqué. A new vessel form is also present in Vuda Phase
assemblages, the dari, or flared-rim bowl (Best 1984: 293). The origin of the Vuda Phase
has been linked to population immigration to Fiji from the west. Frost (1974) detailed this
position in his ceramic research linking the appearance of Vuda ceramics to the rise of
fortifications on Tavenui Island in northern Fiji. Frost argued that Vuda ceramic
decorations were imported by people from Melanesia (particularly Vanuatu) and that the
arrival of this immigrant population also increased competitiveness stimulating the rise of
fortified occupations. The hypothesis that Vuda ceramics and fortifications are linked to a
migrating population from the west has been largely dismantled by subsequent analyses
(Babcock 1977, Bedford and Clark 2001) and on theoretical grounds (Hunt 1986).
The Rā Phase is the final ceramic period identified by archaeologists in Fiji and is
generally noted by ceramics that have increasingly complex incised and appliqué
patterns. Rā Phase ceramics also include new vessel forms, such as double-spouted jars.
Much of the increased variation in decoration and new vessel forms in the Rā Phase is
attributed to increasing contact between Fijian and European populations. Archaeologists
recognize the Rā Phase as early as 450 B.P. (Bedford and Clark 2001: 68) and often
suggest it continues to the present as traditional ceramics are still made in Fiji, although
predominantly for sale to tourists.
Current Research Problems in Fijian

(p. 213)
Archaeology
Cultural Change in the Post-Lapita Mid-Sequence
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Fiji’s ceramic chronology is the foundation upon which all cultural change over the last
three millennia has been based. As already noted, archaeologists have proposed
population movement into or within Fiji as an explanation for ceramic changes heralding
the beginning of both the Navatu and Vuda Phases. As those examples indicate, Fijian
post-Lapita archaeological research has often focused on questions of population
movement and interaction between different populations, although not exclusively so.
That post-Lapita Fijian populations were to some degree mobile, or at least maintained
connections with distant groups or areas, is certainly the case as demonstrated by the
movement of ceramics throughout the archipelago and by the appearance of inland
occupation deposits beginning by about 2000 B.P. at Tatuba Cave in the Sigatoka Valley
(Field 2004, 2008). The cave system at Tatuba covers approximately 420 m of linear
distance and is located over 50 km inland. Cultural deposits in the cave contain marine
shell and marine fish bone, indicating interaction with coastal populations or movement
to the coast (Field 2003: 132–154). The cave was occupied continuously over the last two
millennia and is well placed for access to productive agricultural lands. The use of inland
regions of the Sigatoka Valley is also recorded in the coastal depositional record at the
valley mouth. Geoarchaeological investigation of the Sigatoka coastal dunes and
paleoenvironmental cores suggests that the dunes developed after 1500‒1300 B.P.
generated, in part, by an increased sediment load in the Sigatoka River, itself partly
caused by inland forest clearing and disturbance that may have begun as early as 2000
B.P. (Anderson et al. 2006, Dickinson et al. 1998).
The movement of people or ideas in post-Lapita Fiji is also indicated by two kinds of
ceramic similarity. First, the ceramic surface modifications that define Fiji’s phases, such
as different forms of carved paddle-impressing, incising, and finger-pinching are the same
across the archipelago. As this similarity is likely stylistic (Dunnell 1978), with the spatial
and temporal distribution of forms explained by cultural transmission, it suggests
extensive movement of ideas or people or both, at least at an intensity high enough to
maintain this similarity in ceramic surface treatments. Second, geochemical and
petrographic analysis has documented the transfer of ceramics, which implies population
interaction or movement over three millennia. William Dickinson’s (2006) summary of
ceramic petrographic work in Fiji suggests relatively frequent movement of ceramics, as
he notes the “temper evidence for prehistoric ceramic transfer among multiple islands
within the integrated cultural sphere of Fiji, including the Lau Archipelago, is more
extensive than for any other island cluster of comparable size within Pacific
Oceania” (Dickinson 2006: 116).
In an effort to generate a fine-grained picture of interaction in one part of Fiji,

(p. 214)
Ethan Cochrane and Hector Neff (2006) used LA-ICP-MS to analyze the geochemical
constituents of 260 sherds in 14 sites, distributed across the 2,700-year sequence of the
Yasawa Islands. They found that for the first 1,700 years of occupation sherd clays at
these sites likely derived from the Yasawa Islands, but also the Mamanuca Islands to the
south. About 1000 cal. B.P., however, there was a relatively abrupt contraction in the
spatial scale of interaction, so that the Yasawa Islands sites contained a significantly
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greater proportion of sherds from Yasawa Islands clays and not clays from the Mamanuca
Islands. The timing of this contraction in interaction, at least as measured by the
distribution of sherd clays, is associated with evidence of environmental and subsistence
changes in the Yasawa Islands (Morrison and Cochrane 2008), and later construction of
defensive sites (Smith and Cochrane 2011), that suggest increased competition between
human groups may explain spatial changes in interaction.
Clark and Kennett (2009) have alternatively argued that the Yasawa Islands sherd
geochemical data may reflect the post-1000 cal. B.P. specialized production of ceramics
in the Yasawa Islands, with the ceramics distributed out from this production locale. They
also suggest that such specialized production of various products occurred throughout
the Fijian archipelago and formed a foundation for the later development of Fijian
chiefdoms. While there is historical evidence of specialized production of ceramics and
other items around Fiji, provenance research on post-1000 B.P. ceramics in the
Mamanuca Islands is needed to evaluate Clark and Kennett’s thesis.
Changing Social Complexity and Competition in Post-Lapita Fiji
Perhaps counterintuitively, the post-Lapita interaction across Fiji documented by Clark

and Dickinson may also have been occurring at a time of increasing human competition.
The distribution of fortified sites in Fiji has been extensively documented for Viti Levu by
J. T. Parry (1977, 1982, 1987, 1997) through stereoscopic aerial photo analysis.
Settlements surrounded by one or more annular ditches and embankments with palisades
were constructed on the alluvial terraces of Viti Levu’s river valleys in large numbers.
Parry argues that these settlements were constructed to defend the agricultural lands
surrounding them. Other fortified sites were constructed in difficult to access locations,
such as hilltops, and employed natural barriers, such as cliffs, as part of their defenses
(Figure 10.3). Although Parry’s chronological understanding of the development of
fortified sites was limited (no excavations were carried out), he surmised that the
agriculturally best areas would have been settled first with more marginal lands occupied
later (Parry 1982).
Since Parry, several other archaeologists have examined fortified sites throughout Fiji and
interpreted their origins, form, and distribution in a variety of ways including as an
outcome of chiefly competition (Rechtman 1992), as a response to external threats (Frost
(p. 215) (p. 216) 1974), or both (Best 1993). Julie Field has conducted the most thorough
examination of fortified sites in Fiji with her studies (1998, 2004, 2005) concentrating on
the Sigatoka Valley of western Viti Levu. Through a combination of GIS analyses and
estimates of environmental productivity, she demonstrated that the origins and
distribution of continuously occupied fortified sites in the valley is explained by the
productivity of agricultural lands and their ease of defense as predicted by human
behavioral ecology models. Other fortified sites were used as refuges or part-time
defensive locations in times of resource stress. Field notes that not until about 500 years
ago were the majority of ring-ditch fortifications in the valley continuously occupied and
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that this coincides with the putative rise of chiefdoms in Fiji and the transitional period
between the global Little Climatic Optimum (LCO) and Little Ice Age (LIA), a time when
weather patterns were too unpredictable to support previous levels of rain-fed
agriculture. She suggests that “that emergent social complexity, increased regional
interaction, and intra-archipelago exchange may have been further stimulated in Fiji by
the upheavals of the LCO/LIA transition” (Field 2004: 95).
Although Field is one of

the few archaeologists to
propose Darwinian
mechanisms to explain
changes in social
complexity in Fiji, other
scholars have also
examined the different
social statuses of people in
the past. While there is not
much evidence of great
variation in the treatment
of the dead, burials in Fiji
have been interpreted to
reflect status variation, as
is done in other areas of
Figure 10.3 A, plan map of fortified hilltop site on
Nacula in the Yasawa Islands. Such fortified hilltops the world. A series of over
are similar to those documented elsewhere in Fiji, fifty spatially and
including in the Sigatoka Valley on Viti Levu. Note
the ditches and banks constructed on the northern temporally related burials
perimeter of the site. B, photograph is a view to the at the Sigatoka Dune site,
site from the southwest (see Cochrane 2009: 62–68).
likely dating to around
C, elevation transect.
1600 cal. B.P., is the
earliest deposit in Fiji with
a large number of interments (Burley 2005). There are differences in the elaboration of
coral burial cairns at this cemetery, with more elaborate cairns placed at the highest
elevations and these are interpreted as individuals of higher status (Best 1989; Visser
1994). Field (2003) also reports large, communally built, earth burial mounds for high
status individuals at defensive settlements in the Sigatoka Valley.
Additionally, the reconstruction of past diets has been used to infer status differences
among Fijians. For example, the isotopic diets of eight protohistoric adults interred on
Cikobia Island have been interpreted as resulting from a focus on taro, yams, fish, and
turtle. Comparison of these diets to the inferred diets of the general population may
indicate the higher status of these individuals (Valentin et al. 2006; see also Field et al.
2009). Sharyn Jones (2009; and see Jones and Quinn 2009) has also correlated
subsistence patterns with differential statuses. She notes that on Nayau in the Lau
Islands, many oven features dating from the mid- to late-prehistoric periods (Navatu and
Vuda Phases) contain a higher proportion of fish cranial bones relative to other fish
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bones. Since fish crania do not have as much meat as other parts of a fish, and they
would not be expected from optimality models to be high-ranked food items, Jones
interprets their prevalence to consumption by higher status individuals for which the
heads of fish are socially appropriate in contemporary Fiji (Ravuvu 1983).
There is much greater evidence of complex polities or chiefdoms (Sayes 1984), with
multiple status levels and specializations, provided in the ethnohistoric record of early
westerners in the islands (e.g., Williams 1982 [1858]). Pre-European complex polities in
Fiji are also revealed through the distribution of Fijian communalects or speech (p. 217)
communities, particularly a long-lived linguistic prestige area comprised of several
communalects centered on southeastern Viti Levu (Geraghty 1983: 383), an area also
known ethnohistorically as a center of political power (Scarr 1984). A key question asked
by researchers is what processes explain the origins and development of chiefdoms in the
archipelago. Field’s proposal is that competition over agricultural resources is an
important correlate of changing social complexity. In support of this, Derrick (1968: 55)
notes that the principal chiefdoms encountered at European contact were all on the
windward coasts, regions with greater rainfall, and presumably greater agricultural
potential, relative to the leeward coasts. Clark (2000, Clark and Anderson 2009) agrees
that resource competition is important, but notes that changing interaction networks and
economic specialization also contributed to increased social and political complexity over
the last millennium of Fiji’s prehistory.
Outside Influences
Prior to extended interactions with Europeans beginning in the nineteenth century, parts
of Fiji were intertwined politically and economically with Tonga, as were parts of Sāmoa
(see Burley and Addison’s essay). Probably by about 500 years ago Tongan populations
visited and sometimes resided in Viti Levu, parts of Vanua Levu, and the Lau Islands
(Burley 1998, Thompson 1938), with the local Fijian and Tongan chiefly lineages
intermarrying (Derrick 1968). In time, trees for canoe building, sandalwood, and red bird
feathers were taken from Fiji in exchange for valuables, such as fine mats, produced in
Tonga. The political and economic relationships between Fiji and Tonga are also recorded
in oral tradition and place names, and in chiefly titles (Barnes and Hunt 2005; Derrick
1968).
The first Europeans to land on Fijian soil were wreck survivors, and this occurred about
157 years after Tasman had sighted islands in northern Fiji in 1643, without making
landfall. Both Cook and Bligh sailed through Fiji in 1774 and 1789, respectively, but
neither made contact with any Fijians, and a few more ships visited the islands before the
turn of the eighteenth century, but it was not until approximately 1800 that the Argo
wrecked in the Lau Islands and Europeans first stepped ashore (Derrick 1968: 37).
During the first decades of the 1800s more Europeans came to Fiji for sandalwood, a
prized commodity in good supply, especially on Vanua Levu, and traded typical European
items (glass, metal tools) and muskets for this wood. Sandalwood, however, was soon
Page 12 of 28

almost gone and trade in bêche de mere (sea cucumber) took over for much of the rest of
the century. Europeans also helped Fijians in internal wars and the firearms and cannon
brought to Fiji by Europeans certainly increased the level of violence between polities in
the islands, although the effects these weapons had on the development of large-scale
political units, chiefdoms, is debated (Sayes 1984). The 1800s also saw the arrival of
missionaries. Between 1830 and 1840, members of the London Missionary Society,
Wesleyans, and French Catholic priests arrived in Fiji and competed for converts.
(p. 218)In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, a confederacy of some of the
most powerful chiefdoms in Fiji was formed, along with a general assembly comprising
the chiefs of these polities, each with European advisors. In 1874, the general assembly
of chiefs, headed by Caokbau of Bau, ceded Fiji to Great Britain. The motivation of these
chiefs to cede rule to a foreign power are varied but likely included chiefly monetary and
land debts to westerners, and the desire for assistance in continuing skirmishes with
other chiefdoms in Fiji (Newbury 2011). Cession did not herald peace, however, as British
forces battled groups in the interior of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu who resisted colonial
(and church) power (Nicole 2010). Introduced disease in the colonial period also took its
toll, with 20%‒25% of Fijians perishing during the 1875 measles epidemic (Haggett
1993). While there is abundant historical and ethnohistoric information on Fiji, historical
archaeology in the islands is essentially nonexistent, save for a couple of projects. Much
knowledge would be gained by the concerted efforts of historical archaeologists (Crosby
2002; Smith 2006).
A Long-Standing Question in Fijian

Archaeology
Many of the basic archaeological questions asked by archaeologists working on the
islands of Oceania—what processes drove island colonization, why (and when) did
subsistence practices vary, what explains changes in social complexity—are somewhat
unresolved in Fiji, largely due to the paucity of archaeological work for such a large
archipelago (the second largest land area in Remote Oceania, only about 2% less land
than New Caledonia). In this section, one of these questions is examined with an eye
toward future research.
As noted at the beginning of this essay, Fiji has long been characterized culturally,
linguistically, and biologically as spanning the generalizations made of both Melanesia
and Polynesia. In terms of material culture, the first Fijian populations produced and used
artifacts—such as decorated Lapita pots, lenticular cross-section metamorphic stone
adzes, and shell ornaments—similar to those used by populations in what would become
Polynesia, Sāmoa, and Tonga. These artifacts are also similar to those produced by
populations in New Caledonia and Vanuatu in Melanesia. Early artifact similarities across
Page 13 of 28

all these archipelagos and the rapidity with which they were settled indicate that they
were colonized by a culturally related population (Cochrane 2017; Golson 1961; Green
1995; Kirch 1997; Sheppard et al. 2015).
After about 2700 B.P., when it seems dentate-decorated Lapita ceramics are no longer
made in Fiji (cf., Burley and Connaughton 2010), or anywhere in Remote Oceania, Fijian
material culture is more readily distinguished from the archipelagos to the west and the
east. To the west in Vanuatu, for example, Stuart Bedford (2006, and see Bedford and
Spriggs’ essay) has identified multiple, partly contemporaneous post-Lapita (p. 219)
ceramic traditions. These ceramic traditions last for differing amounts of time; they are
differentiated by their distinctive surface treatments; and they are spatially restricted in
their distribution across the archipelago suggesting cultural transmission occurred more
frequently within regions of Vanuatu than across the archipelago as a whole (cf. Dickinson
2006: 115–116). In New Caledonia, there is also post-Lapita regional diversification in
ceramics with northern and southern traditions distinguished by different vessel forms
and surface treatments. At the same time as this regional diversification, similar paddle-
impressed ceramics are also made throughout the Grande Terre of New Caledonia, until
the start of the first millennium A.D. (Sand et al. 2011). New Caledonian post-Lapita
ceramic diversity suggests cultural transmission of ceramic variants occurred within
intra-archipelago regions at a greater frequency than between regions for some styles,
but paddle-impressed variants were transmitted throughout the island population. The
intra-archipelago ceramic diversity that attests to multiple “local” populations in New
Caledonia and Vanuatu (cf. Dickinson 2006: 116), in terms of the transmission of ceramic
variation, is not seen in Fiji. Interestingly, the earliest paddle-impressed ceramics in Fiji
are penecontemporaneous with their appearance in New Caledonia, appearing in the
Yasawas and Mamanucas of western Fiji sometime before 2700 cal. B.P. (Cochrane 2002)
and, in small amounts, in the same deposits as dentate-decorated Lapita (Cochrane et al.
2011: Table 6), also similar to New Caledonia. Paddle-impressed ceramics are found in
eastern Fiji (the Lau Group) in deposits earlier than 2470‒2000 cal. B.P. (Cochrane 2009:
21, 53) and in central Fiji, specifically southern Viti Levu and surrounding islands in
immediately post-Lapita or mixed Lapita and later period deposits (Crosby 1988, Clark
and Anderson 2009a).
It seems likely that the co-occurrence of Fijian paddle-impressed and dentate ceramics, at
least in one site of western Fiji (cf. Hunt 1980), and the similar time frame of paddle-
impressed ceramics in Fiji and New Caledonia is best explained by the cultural
transmission of ceramic variation between these two archipelagos (Burley 2013: 442),
without much movement of pots as there is currently no geochemical or petrographic
evidence of pottery transfer. The spread of pottery-making variants may have occurred
near the end of widespread Lapita movement in Near Oceania. Cochrane and Lipo’s
(2010) network analysis of Lapita decorative variation indicates that New Caledonia and
western Fiji maintained greater transmission-influenced ceramic similarity toward the
end of the dentate Lapita pottery period than other archipelagos in Remote Oceania.
Page 14 of 28

Like material culture, the diversity of Fijian languages may be explained by variation in
the frequency of cultural transmission within regions of Fiji and between Fiji and other
archipelagos. In general, Fijian languages share similarities with languages spoken by
populations in island groups to the east and the west (Geraghty 1983, Pawley and Sayaba
1971). Instead of Fijian languages, however, it is more accurate to speak of Fijian
communalects or communities “whose native-born inhabitants share a homogenous
speech tradition, quite free of regional variation” (Pawley and Sayaba 1971: 407).
Communalects are well-recognized by native speakers and may be distinguished by a few
differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and intonation. The number of communalects in
Fiji is unknown but probably numbers from 100 to 300 (Geraghty 1983; (p. 220) Pawley
and Sayaba 1971). Geographically contiguous communalects are often arranged into
dialect chains, so that adjacent communalects share much in common, but communalects
at either end of the chain may be quite different.
There is, however, a major speech-community boundary in Fiji (Geraghty 1983). Fijian
communalects can be divided into a western dialect chain and a group of eastern dialect
chains (Geraghty and Pawley 1981) with the boundary between them running along the
central mountain chain on Viti Levu, then south along the Navua River (see Figure 10.1).
With only a few exceptions, communalects that are on either side of this boundary do not
grade into each other as in the dialect chains throughout Fiji.
Other patterns of communalect similarity in Fiji have also been discovered. Geraghty
identified a subset of eastern Fijian communalects from the Lau Group and eastern Vanua
Levu that share a number of unique lexical innovations with Polynesian languages to the
east (Geraghty 1983: 379–382). Geraghty suggests that these communalects may be
evidence of a population comprising eastern Vanua Levu, Lau, and Tonga within which
the transmission of some elements of language occurred at a higher frequency than
between this population and other populations, say of western Fiji. Pawley (see essay) has
proposed the following scenario to explain all of these general patterns of language
variation in Fiji: Lapita settlement of Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa resulted in a “dialect
complex” distributed over mainly coastal areas of these islands; three regions of
communalect similarity quickly formed after colonization including the region of western
Viti Levu and western Vanua Levu, the region of eastern Vanua Levu, Lau, and Tonga, and
the region of eastern Viti Levu; over time eastern Vanua Levu and Lau groups broke away
from Tongan speech communities and began to share more language similarities with
groups in their proximity; later linguistic innovations spread across Fiji indicating
transmission throughout the archipelago; and finally, the division between eastern and
western dialect chains strengthened as river valley populations increased and the central
mountain chain on Viti Levu impeded contact between groups.
In summary, Fijian communalect diversity suggests a complex history of linguistic

transmission between and within Fiji, with eastern Fijian communalects sharing more
similarities with Tonga and western communalects sharing similarities to Melanesian
languages (Geraghty 1983: 389). A significant division between eastern and western
Fijian communalects also suggests that sometime after colonization the probability of
Page 15 of 28

linguistic transmission between individuals within the archipelago is not well accounted
for by a simple distance-equation. Finally, patterns of communalect similarity suggest that
at some point an isolation-by-density model may explain frequencies of language
transmission in much of the archipelago, except for central Fiji where language
transmission appears to have been structured around different parameters (Hunt 1987).
In addition to material culture and language, biological variation across Remote Oceania
has been examined to infer the population history of Fiji. Depending on which genetic
markers are analyzed or which metric and non-metric skeletal attributes are examined
(and how these are statistically analyzed), scholars have suggested that the colonizing
population in Fiji derived from an original Melanesian population, a southeast Asian
population in Melanesia, or a mixture of both. There are four sets of fairly (p. 221)
complete remains associated with colonizing populations in Fiji: one from Waya Island,
two from Lakeba, and one from Moturiki. Metric and non-metric analyses by Michael
Pietrusewsky et al. (1997) and P. Houghton (1989) suggest that these skeletons, minus the
Moturiki burial, which has not been analyzed in a similar group, are like other Lapita-age
skeletons in Tonga and Near Oceania and also share affinities with other skeletal series
suggesting an Island Southeast Asian or Chinese coastal biological homeland.
No analyses of ancient genetic material from Lapita-age skeletons in Fiji have been
successfully performed. The genetic variability of modern populations has, however, been
used to suggest the biological characteristics of Fiji’s colonizers. Again, results differ
depending on which genetic markers are examined and which population samples are
assayed, but in general modern Fiji populations are similar to West Polynesian
populations and Near Oceanic populations (Hertzberg et al. 1989; Kirk 1988, 1989;
Wollstein et al. 2010), with some studies showing fairly equal gene flow between Fijian
populations and populations to the east in Sāmoa and the west in Vanuatu and New
Caledonia (e.g., Kirk et al. 1987; Lum et al. 2002). Several researchers (e.g., Hurles et al.
2002; Kayser et al. 2006) have linked Remote Oceanic biological complexity to a likely
population bottleneck in Fiji as the colonizers of Remote Oceania continued to move east
from Vanuatu, the Santa Cruz Islands, and New Caledonia into the remote Pacific.
The biological diversity of Fiji after colonization has been assessed through morphological
studies of remains from Natunuku (Davidson and Leach 1993, Pietrusewsky 1989) and
the Sigatoka Sand Dunes (Pietrusewsky et al. 1994, Visser 1994) with the remains dating
to approximately 1,000 to 1,500 years after colonization of the archipelago. The
Natunuku skeleton is similar to both Melanesian and Tongan series, along with remains
from Lakeba. The Sigatoka materials were described as both similar to modern Fijians
through non-metric cranial data and infracranial analyses (Pietrusewsky, et al. 1994) and
like Lapita samples and other skeletal series in Remote Oceania (Visser 1994). These
analyses of skeletons belonging to populations that post-date Fiji’s colonization suggest
continued population-contact between Fiji and island groups to the east and west (Visser
1994: 249).
Page 16 of 28

In summary, biological variation in Fijian populations from the archipelago’s colonization

up to the present indicates that Fiji’s biological heritage includes populations in greater
Near Oceania, likely including Island Southeast Asia and Remote Oceanic Island
Melanesia and West Polynesia. Importantly, Fiji’s population has probably continued to
exchange genetic material with populations to the east and, perhaps more so, to the west
throughout the human history of the archipelago.
Summarizing the Fijian data on culture, language, and biology in a similar way, Burley
(2013) has argued that the differences and similarities shared by Fijians and West
Polynesians are a product of separate founder events during Remote Oceanic
colonization, the formation of at least partially separate interaction spheres—western Fiji
to one side and Tonga-Lau to the other—and post-colonization migrations either within
Fiji or by populations entering Fiji from the west. Burley’s argument is convincing and is
certainly in many respects an accurate description of what happened in the past. Several
archaeologists (e.g., Bedford and Clark 2001, Clark 2009, Marshall et al. 2000), however,
(p. 222) do not agree that the Fijian material culture changes identified by Burley, some
of these already summarized, are explained by migration and differential interaction. At

the heart of their arguments lies the difficult question, what do different kinds and
amounts of similarity mean? For example, Clark (2013: 447) argues that differences
between Fijian Plainware and Navatu ceramics are so slight there is no need to invoke a
migration to account for the latter pottery, but Burley (2013: 458) counters that the
differences are indeed great enough to support a migration scenario. What is missing in
these exchanges, and much of Fijian archaeology, is an appreciation of both the role of
general or explanatory theory in predicting the empirical results of different processes
and the role of associated classification procedures for describing variation in the
archaeological record.
Where Burley’s explanation of Fijian polygenesis relies on artifact similarity, he is

employing homologous similarity, a concept from evolutionary theory. Homologous
similarity results from processes of cultural transmission, and different cultural
transmission processes allow us to predict different patterns of homologous similarity
(Eerkens and Lipo 2007). Alternatively, some similarities are analogous. Analogous
similarities are shared between populations, not as a result of cultural transmission
between them, but instead through a number of processes including environmental
constraint of cultural variation (O’Brien et al. 1994), independent invention and adaptive
convergence (e.g., McCoy and Graves 2010), and parallelism or similarities arising from
deeper homologies (e.g., Kirch 1990). In short, both homologous and analogous
similarities are (1) embedded in an evolutionary explanatory framework, (2) have
particular distributional expectations, and (3) are explained through processes such as
cultural transmission and selection. Classification procedures (i.e., how we describe the
archaeological record) also derive from this explanatory framework (Dunnell 1978).
Briefly, artifact classes that are designed to measure homologous similarity should be
defined by attributes that are potentially free to vary within certain limits, not tied to
specific environmental variation, and do not likely contribute to artifact performance
differences that influence differential replication (Leonard and Jones 1987). In contrast,
Page 17 of 28

artifact classes designed to measure analogous similarity might be defined by attributes

that track natural environments, artifact performance and use, or other attributes
hypothesized to be patterned by selection.
How could archaeologists apply such a framework to the question of Fijian polygenesis?
We might expect different dimensions of material culture variation to be explained by
different processes, such as similar ceramic surface treatments possibly resulting from
cultural transmission between populations, but shared vessel form diversity explained by
independent invention and convergence related to similar subsistence regimes (Cochrane
2002). Other aspects of human variation, including biology and language, are partially
explained by transmission, both genetic and cultural, and we might expect that different
dimensions of human variation will exhibit similar patterns, such as a demic split between
western and eastern Fijian dialects. Most important, the application of an evolutionary
framework to the question of Fijian polygenesis includes explicit explanatory processes
and classification methods derived from these processes, (p. 223) so that we can clearly
address the question, what do different kinds and amounts of similarity mean.
In the case of the Fijian Plainware-Navatu ceramic transition, Burley’s primary artifact
class is the Navatu ceramic type, which he defines in part as comprising thin-walled
globular jars with sharply everted rims, and with surface treatments including fingernail
pinches, punctates, and appliqué. This differs slightly from the original defining attributes
identified by Green (1963), and which were isolated through stratigraphic comparisons of
assemblages without explicit reference to any explanatory process. As a result, the
Navatu ceramic type includes attributes whose temporal and spatial distributions are
possibly explained by different processes. Some basic observations are suggestive. The
temporal distribution of Navatu-type surface treatment and rim-form seems to have a
geographic component, with the earliest appearance in the east at site 197 on Lakeba in
layers dated approximately 1900–1500 years cal. B.P. (2σ; Best 1984: 295, fig. 3.55;
Cochrane 2009: 21, table 2.1), then at Sigatoka on the south central coast of Viti Levu
between 1330 and 1290 cal. B.P., and finally in the western Yasawa Islands (site Y2-39),
first in a layer dated 1262–934 years cal. B.P. (2σ; Cochrane 2002: 45, fig. 10, and 2009:
98–101, table 5.26). The clinal appearance across Fiji of similar surface-treatment and
rimform attributes, attributes that are likely stylistic (Dunnell 1978), suggests an
explanation of cultural transmission across a single population. This explanation may be
tested with techniques like cladistics and seriation that are designed to map historical
relationships (Lipo et al. 2006). Other attributes of Navatu-type ceramics, hardness and
wall thickness, for example, may be explained by rapidly changing selective conditions
favoring vessels with different physical performance characteristics, and this may explain
the Sigatoka Navatu ceramics, in particular, where Burley has suggested a migrant
population produced this pottery. These kinds of explanations are also testable through
quantitative distributional (e.g., Brantingham and Perreault 2010) and materials science
techniques (e.g., Feather 2006).
Page 18 of 28

Prospectus
The colonization, culture historical changes, evolution of diversity, and contemporary
variation across Fijian populations is a product of the archipelago’s “between-ness.” More
specifically, Fiji is in the center of a region quickly colonized by related populations 3,000
years ago, and after initial widespread interaction, linguistic, cultural, and biological
transmission became relatively local. However, additional population movements and
other demographic changes likely occurred over the subsequent millennia, some perhaps
involving populations from outside Fiji. We can best explain similarities and differences in
the archaeological record across these millennia by employing a general theory that
allows us to predict the kinds of variation resulting predominantly from transmission and
historical relatedness and the kinds of variation that we might expect (p. 224) in separate
populations arising from the social and natural environment, adaptation, and other
evolutionary processes.
Acknowledgments
The editorial suggestions of Julie Field and Sharyn Jones improved the content and
presentation of this work. I would like to dedicate this essay to the Fiji Museum staff who
have collaborated with me and made this work possible: Jone Naucabalavu, Sepeti
Matararaba, and Elia Nakoro. Vinaka.
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Ancient Fiji: Melting Pot of the Southwest Pacific

Oxford Handbooks Online

Print Publication Date: May 2018 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of Oceania

Abstract and Keywords

Between Melanesia and Polynesia

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millennia of human occupation, these islands’ inhabitants maintained connections to both

Fiji’s characterization as neither wholly Melanesian nor Polynesian is more interesting

Fijian Culture History

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Lapita Colonization of Fiji

coring program coupled with sediment analyses, radiocarbon dating, topographic

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At the Tavua Village Site,

Lapita-age material culture in Fiji is, unsurprisingly, dominated by ceramics, both

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Changes in Fijian ceramics after colonization have been traditionally summarized in a

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(p. 212) The Navatu Phase

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Current Research Problems in Fijian

Cultural Change in the Post-Lapita Mid-Sequence

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In an effort to generate a fine-grained picture of interaction in one part of Fiji,

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Changing Social Complexity and Competition in Post-Lapita Fiji

Perhaps counterintuitively, the post-Lapita interaction across Fiji documented by Clark

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Although Field is one of

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A Long-Standing Question in Fijian

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In summary, Fijian communalect diversity suggests a complex history of linguistic

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In summary, biological variation in Fijian populations from the archipelago’s colonization

of these already summarized, are explained by migration and differential interaction. At

Where Burley’s explanation of Fijian polygenesis relies on artifact similarity, he is

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artifact classes designed to measure analogous similarity might be defined by attributes

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Babcock, T. 1977. “A re-analysis of pottery from fortified sites on Taveuni, Fiji.”

Subscriber: Universidad de Chile; date: 21 September 2018

Burley, David V. 2003. “Dynamic landscapes and episodic occupations: Archaeological

Burley, David V. 2005. “Mid-sequence archaeology at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes

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Clark, Geoffrey R. 1999. “Post-Lapita Fiji: Cultural Transformation in the Mid-Sequence.”

Cochrane, Ethan E. 2002. “Explaining the prehistory of ceramic technology on Waya

Cochrane, Ethan E. 2009. The Evolutionary Archaeology of Ceramic Diversity in Ancient

Subscriber: Universidad de Chile; date: 21 September 2018

Crosby, Andrew. 1988. “Beqa: Archaeology, Structure and History in Fiji.”

Master’s thesis, University of Auckland, 1988.

Derrick, R. 1968. A History of Fiji. Suva: Print and Stationary Department.

Dickinson, W. R., D. V. Burley, P. D. Nunn, A. Anderson, G. Hope, A. De Biran, C. Burke,

Dickinson, William R. 2006. Temper Sands in Prehistoric Oceanian Pottery: Geotectonics,

Feathers, James K. 2006. “Explaining shell-tempered pottery in prehistoric eastern North

Field, J. S. 1998. “Natural and constructed defenses in Fijian fortifications.” Asian

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Gifford, E. W. 1951. “Archaeological excavations in Fiji.” Anthropological

Records, 189–288. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.