Lapitaadj.n.

1966 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 75 373 Known variously as Lapita, roulette or pointillé, these distinctive sherds with their diversity of delicately impressed geometrical patterns, are now taken to be an indication of a very early settlement horizon wherever they are found.

1971 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 80 282 The Lapita-potters..were undoubtedly the ancestors of the modern Tongans.

1972 Times 9 May 16/6 The pottery samples which they have recovered are of the type known as Lapita ware, which previous archaeological work has revealed across the south-west Pacific from Watom Island..to Tonga.

1971 J. Golson Lapita Ware in Stud. Oceanic Culture Hist. II. 73 The differences in the archaeological expression of the early cultures of Tonga and Samoa have been misread and their significance misinterpreted. My case is that the latter, no less than the former, is of Lapita inspiration. If this is so, then Lapita is the immediate source for the Polynesian cultures as a whole.

1979 R. C. Green in Prehist. of Polynesia ii. 30/1 The Lapita villages..often show evidence of permanent habitation.

1979 R. C. Green in Prehist. of Polynesia ii. 34/1 Lapita has been referred to as both a cultural horizon and a cultural tradition.

1993 Amer. Anthropologist 95 iii. 613 Scholars..argue that the origin of Lapita lies in Asian Near Oceania, with a migration of ‘Lapita peoples’ into Melanesian Near Oceania.