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Ateliers of basalt. Basalt industries of Tafuna (AS-31-150) and Pava'ia'i (AS-31-170), Tutuila Island, American Samoa.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

We examine two basalt industry sites, one at Tafuna and one at Pava'ia'i, located on a Holocene lava and pyroclastic plain, several kilometers from potential adze-quality-basalt quarries. Statistical analyses of flakes from two discrete 'workshops' are used to reconstruct the adze production process at each site. The results show that while the Pava'ia'i site was a production site for adzes, the Tafuna site was both a production and reproduction site for adzes and scrapers. This suggests that the basalt-tool production system was diverse and multi-dimensional.

Keywords: basalt adze, industry, technological sequence, Tutuila Island, American Samoa

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Tutuila was an adze production centre in the South Pacific (Best et al. 1992; Clark et al. 1997). Adzes made from the fine basalt of Tutuila were widely distributed in the region between the Solomon Islands and the Cook Islands (Figure 1) and have thus long been a major focus for understanding long-distance interaction in Oceania.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The major subaerial portion of Tutuila was formed 1.0-1.5 Ma (McDougall 1985). Three shield volcanoes formed roughly simultaneously along a fracture lineament associated with deformation of the underlying Pacific Plate near the Tonga Trench (Natland 1980, 2003). These volcanics are the source of the fine-grained export-quality Tutuila basalts (Figure 2). Following a long erosional interval, a 6 km rift zone opened in the late Holocene and produced vesicular lava, tuff, and ash deposits forming a large bulge on the southern coast (Figure 2). These Leone Volcanics continued to be produced until at least c. 1500 BP (Addison et al. 2006) or perhaps as late as c. 1200 BP (Addison and Asaua in press).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

In the ethnographic period, Tutuila adzes were distributed to Fiji and Tonga as prestige goods (Kaeppler 1978). Archaeologically, basalts geochemically similar to samples from the Tataga Matau quarry on Tutuila are common in analyzed samples from sites around the region (Best et al. 1992; Clark et al. 1997; Di Piazza and Pearthree 2001).

The production processes of adzes from the Tataga Matau quarry site have been studied by Leach and Witter (1987, 1990), analyzing finished and unfinished adzes. However, basalt flakes--likely to have been wastes and by-products of the adze production process--were not analyzed. Clark (1993) analyzed the flakes found at the industry site at Alega, but the data quality is insufficient for carrying out a detailed analysis.

In this paper we analyze data obtained from two basalt industry sites on Tutuila--at Tafuna (Site AS-31-150) and Pava'ia'i (Site AS-31-170). These sites are workshop sites situated several kilometers from potential quarries (Figure 2). We use statistical analysis of the flakes from these industries to investigate the differences between the adze production processes. We compare the data obtained with that obtained from the Alega quarry site.

Data and protocol of description

We obtained 1756 samples from the Tafuna site and 1308 samples from the Pava'ia'i site, both located on a Holocene lava and pyroclastic plain. At Tafuna an area in excess of 100 m2 was excavated by the Archaeological Specialists Division of the American Samoa Power Authority (ASPA) between November 2003 and January 2004. The Pava'ia'i site was found by the Archaeological Specialists Division in May 2004 during monitoring of sewer line construction. Archaeological materials were collected from the surface of a disturbed area around a house foundation. Although no radiocarbon date associated with the industries has been obtained for the two sites, they are assumed to belong to the aceramic period of Samoan prehistory (from 5th to 19th century AD), since no pottery was found....