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Mortuary practices of the first Polynesians: formative ethnogenesis in the Kingdom of Tonga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Frederique Valentin ,
Geoffrey Clark ,
Philip Parton  and
Christian Reepmeyer
Frederique Valentin*
Affiliation:
ArScAn-Ethnologie Préhistorique, CNRS, Nanterre, France
Geoffrey Clark
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University, Australia
Philip Parton
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University, Australia
Christian Reepmeyer
Affiliation:
CABAH, College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Australia
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ [email protected]
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Abstract

Ancestral Polynesian Society has been argued to represent a formative stage in Polynesian ethnogenesis. Recently discovered human burials at the Talasiu midden site in Tonga, dating to c. 2650 cal BP, now provide the earliest known evidence for Ancestral Polynesian mortuary behaviour. This article presents and evaluates the burials, comparing archaeological evidence for Talasiu mortuary practices with those of older Lapita and more recent Tongan burials, as well as with Ancestral Polynesian Society funerary activities inferred through linguistic reconstruction. These comparisons emphasise that several socio-cultural behaviours that are important to contemporary Polynesian societies were expressed very differently in the past.

Keywords

Pacific IslandsTongaLapitaethnogenesismortuary practice
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 94 , Issue 376 , August 2020 , pp. 999 - 1014
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

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