Sunday, our final day

We rise once more for church in the morning, donning our white clothes, taking our hand-woven fans. A memorial service follows for a deceased relative in New Zealand for which a feast has been prepared over the past few days. It is not yet the time for goodbyes, that will come tomorrow morning when we board the Lady Naomi, the ship that will take us back to Apia. But it is the time for speeches to express how thankful we have all been to enjoy each other’s company, for prayers of a safe journey, and jokes to relieve the seriousness.

We have accomplished most all of our goals in this short time, despite the limited amount that we were able to excavate with such a small team. David was able to teach the students of Atafu about archaeology, the basic methods and theories behind our studies. Rintaro has plenty of fishbones, the 10,000 necessary for legitimate study, to analyze throughout the year until we come back. Adam took six column samples from which to take land snails to show what the plants and environment was like in the past. Burials were found for Frederique. An intact living surface was found for Jenny. Bird bones were found for Alice, let’s hope some are chicken.

That all of this was accomplished by only four cubic meters of excavation speaks of the nature of modern archaeology. It is not how much one digs, it is how one digs. By following the notes left by Simon Best we found good locations to dig. Careful screening with three different interlocking screens gave us fine detailed precision. Plus a little bit of luck helped. The excavations were filled with beach sand so that it will be easily recognizable for when we open them back up when we return, and careful notes have been taken to prepare us for that time.

One project, however, is still unfinished. Lisa’s late arrival has given her little time to take the DNA samples of the people of Atafu for which she came. The village has decided though to accommodate her study and has decided to allow a mass sampling to be performed this evening. Normally no work is allowed on Sunday except the feeding of the pigs since it is a daily necessity. That an exception has been made to this rule shows the support of the whole island for our work. The men’s group has already had their turn, and so tonight the women’s group, the fatupaipai, gathered in the lotala in their long dresses and swabbed the inside of their cheeks for science.

With the last of our duties completed we will lay in our beds, our stuff half packed, with the uncomfortable anticipation of when we shall have to board the boat and watch the small island of Atafu fade into the horizon. Gifts will be exchanged, carved shell necklaces and hand woven hats from our hosts, burned CDs and DVDs from ourselves. But the memories of our short time together are the deeper gifts that we shall remember while we are busy in the labs at our respective institutions analyzing the data we have collected.

To all the people of Atafu, we thank you.

The end of the new area & a Trip to uta

The final levels were completed today of the 1 x 2 meter excavation in the new area. A thin layer of concentrated fish and bird bones three centimeters thick was found to be well preserved. A posthole lay just below this layer attesting to a structure at the time of the bone deposit, likely a fale umu or cookhouse. These intact layers represent a former living surface of excellent preservation. Jennifer Kahn, who will be joining us in the future projects, specializes in household archaeology in which a large area is opened up to see the living surface of house. This area presents a place for her to begin her work.

One of the more interesting aspects of this area is the lack of volcanic rock. Previous excavations contained basalt throughout the cultural deposits. That this area contains no basalt suggests that there was little sailing activity between Samoa and Tokelau at this time, leaving the islands in relative isolation. This scenario could explain the lack of domesticated mammals. If a famine period occurred all the dogs would have been eaten as a food source and to relieve pressure from the other food resources. With no access to Samoa there would be no way to replenish the stock and no way for pigs to be brought over.

It was today, while screening the final buckets that the most exciting artifact was found, a complete shell adze (toki) with a still sharp edge. The adze was made from a piece of a very large tridacna clam (fasua) shell. The clam would have been so big it is questionable whether it could have lived in the small lagoon of Atafu. It may therefore have been brought from one of the other islands of Tokelau which both have much larger lagoons, or from elsewhere. Clams this large are rarely seen today and would have been few even in the past. It may be that the adze was made from a subfossil from a time prior to human exploitation. This unusual source speaks of the time period from which it came. Local material may have been scarce and every bit important.

Our hard work is bearing fruit. It is nice to speculate on our findings, but real results will have to wait for the completion of the laboratory studies. For now we find it best to take time to relax and enjoy the beautiful location where we are blessed to be working. Olive (pronounced, O lee ve) has offered to take us to uta, the outer islands, for a nightly picnic. We all pile into the small boat and set out across the lagoon at sunset. It grows dark after we arrive waiting on the beach for the uga uga, the coconut crab to emerge from their homes in the ground. At 7.30 we follow in line behind Olive with torches and a bag the entirety of our equipment. We watch as Olive stalks and pounces quickly snatching and killing our first uga uga. By the end of the night we have caught heaps and Joe has proven his Samoan heritage by catching a bounty of tupa crabs. Dry coconut fronds are collected and set ablaze and the coconut crabs are cooked there on the beach. We feast on crab and coconut beneath the bright stars away from the lights of the village. It is a memory we will not forget, for which we are all grateful to Olive.

Lisa's arrival & the next test units

Our final member of the project arrived Tuesday morning on the Samoa Express. Dr. Lisa Matisoo-Smith will be taking DNA samples of the occupants of the island in order to see the genetic makeup of the current population of Atafu. We have met several people who tell us they are from other islands such as Tuvalu and Chuk, as well as many from the other islands of Tokelau. If this pattern had continued for a long time in the past the population could have a very diverse gene pool. Lisa may be able to say which islands past immigrants came from based on different haplotype groups with common DNA sequences. This study will also serve as a reference for prehistoric DNA studies of human teeth found in TU-4 & and other archaeological excavations on the island. Work began the next day at an aumaga meeting where the details of the project were discussed and a dozen men had their cheeks swabbed for their DNA material, a painless process requiring only a cotton swab.

In the meanwhile excavation moved to the other side of the island to begin the next test unit. The area to be excavated was chosen based on Simon Best’s previous finding of large amounts of faunal material including bird bone. We are hoping to find that some of this bird bone is from chickens so that we may submit some of the bones to Dr. Alice Storey who will look at the DNA of the prehistoric chickens. By comparing these DNA samples to samples from other islands it can be determined from which islands the chickens were brought and thus which islands the people that previous occupied Atafu came from or were in contact with. If the deposit is old, it may also contain birds that were extirpated, killed off by the early colonizers of the island. In addition, we hope to provide Rintaro with additional fish bone for his study.

Our first unit in this area does provide abundant bird and fish bone, as well as large turtle bones. However, the high quantity of fish scales leads us to believe the deposit may not be so old. The absence of dog bone, found in our previous studies to be present from early on, supports this idea. Also absent however is pig bone which is ubiquitous in modern deposits thus sampled. Therefore we think this deposit may date to a time in between this transition giving us an interesting look at a time period without domesticated mammals.

The first unit however also contains pit features originating from the modern levels with several fragments of metal, possibly barbed wire, showing disturbance. Yet, several flakes of pahua, clam shell, show the construction of shell adzes at the time of the undisturbed layers negating the presence of metal at that time. Fortunately, one wall shows an excellent profile promising intact, undisturbed layers for tomorrow to hopefully answer all our questions.

Community fishing & the end of TU-4

The highlight of the aumaga holiday weekend came on Saturday when all the men came together for a laga te ika, when everyone takes to the outer reef to form a semi-circle of people and nets to catch a heap of fish. Half of the men held coconut fronds they waved above their heads to scare the fish towards the beach as the circle became smaller and smaller. As the circle collapsed on itself many different types of fish could be seen. The area being fished was a special reserve area saved for special occasions such as this. Rintaro, our fish expert, was excited to see the outcome of the catch.

Later we all met at the Lalopua, the men’s house under the pua tree, where the inati, the traditional distribution of fish takes place. As the fish were counted out, the majority were found to be unicornfish (humu), surgeonfish (ume), and parrotfish (alahi). These are fish typical of the reef that are easily caught by the net. The modern use of motorboats has made trolling a preferred method to netfishing because of the large tuna that is caught. However before the motorboat our excavations show that netfishing was the preferred method based on the composition of fish remains we find. Trolling was done in special occasions because of the intensive sailing the canoes underwent during the process. This switch is an interesting change we are studying by sampling the fishbones in the excavation.

Following the end of the holidays we returned to work on TU-4. Two burials had been found and we carefully covered them and moved our excavation between them so as not to disturb the integrity of the deposit. They will wait until Dr. Frederique Valentin, a specialist in Polynesian burials, who will be joining us on future excavations. It is good to have found something for her to work on, but the discovery of burials put a stop to our work. On Monday at 140 cmbs we found a third burial we could not dig around and the unit was halted for this season. Profiles were drawn and samples will be taken to understand what we can, but we will not be able to dig to the deep layers we were hoping for to sample the oldest cultural layers. When we look at the profile we see a large pit feature disturbing the layers, likely from the burials. Looking at the subsequent pits shows that the three burials appear to date from three different periods. This will be very good for Frederique. But for us it is less exciting. The artifacts we have so painstakingly sampled have all been mixed by the digging of the pits and we cannot get the data we had hoped for. But as we move to the next area are hopes are still high as we look forward to what we shall find next.

Work days & dancing nights

Work has begun on the first test unit of this season. Following the three units of the previous field season it has been labeled TU-4. It was placed a couple meters away from one of Simon Best’s previous units as described by a local friend who worked with Best. It was here that the only pieces of ceramic yet found on the island were unearthed and the potentially oldest dates my be located. Best obtained a radiocarbon date of 1000 BP from this unit, however, the error range was too great to be very trustworthy. The goals of our excavation are to obtain a more precise date from the deepest cultural layers, as well as to look for additional pottery samples that can be sent to labs for analysis of the sand temper to assess from which type of island the sand could have come. Additionally we will be collecting a sample of fishbones within a 1/8 inch screen sieve to look at the early fishing practices and collecting all other artifacts to look at cultural change.

Thus far we have dug approximately one meter and passed through the modern cultural layers marked by round nails and clear glass, and through the historic layers marked by square nails and opaque glass. We were just making headway into the prehistoric layers when the aumaga holidays began and put a temporary stop to our work. During this time we are not allowed to work and must engage in feasting, singing, dancing, and cricket playing.

The holidays began yesterday with a march by the aumaga, the men’s group, from the meeting house (lotala) to the church for a special ceremonial service. This was followed by festive dances by the men and women’s group and the presentation of the feast that had been prepared by the aumaga all of the night before. For the feast a dozen or so pigs were slaughtered, four large bags of taro imported from Samoa were cooked in the umu, along with pulaka (swamp taro) grown on the island and eaten only on special occasions, as well as the full range of everyday fare: raw fish in coconut cream (ota), chicken curry, rice, cassava, fish soup, skipjack tuna (atu), sprouted coconut (uto) cooked in sweet water, corned beef (poisupo), and more. The bounty will provide for every family throughout the holiday time and only a small portion could be sampled at the time of its presentation.

That night the dance for which everyone had been practicing over the following week was to occur and one of us, Adam Thompson, was fortunate enough to be invited to participate having attended a majority of the practices. Two teams of dancers would be performing face-to-face presenting dances that neither of the other team had yet seen. Once night fell the teams gathered together and marched into the lotala, chanting, to take their positions. The feeling upon entering from out the darkness into the well lit meeting house while everyone’s voice became an reverberating force will not be forgotten. Opening speeches were made and then first one team then the other took turns in performing the dances on which they had practiced so hard. Adam was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to remember the dances but had warmed up a bit before hand. The other team was also very good. But as the first song started and he stood up on cue and the moves came back to him he began to put more emphasis and more emotion into his performance following the fellow dancers around him until the group danced as one and he knew perhaps for a bit what it was like to be Tokelau, even if this bit were all he could obtain.

Greetings & Teachings

Before work may begin, we must first take care of some necessary responsibilities, to greet the friends we made on our previous visits and, for those of us for which it is our first visit to Atafu, to introduce ourselves to the community that is very interested in our stay and the reasons we have come here.

On our first visit, meetings were arranged with the taupulega, the council of elders, in which the details of our projects were explained. At that time they agreed to accept us onto their island and support our endeavors. Having completed this process, we are accepted warmly onto the island without needing to repeat the process. Instead we greet everyone more informally.

We have arranged our project to take place during the school holiday and at the time of our arrival the final formalities to the completion of the school year are taking place. We arrange a meeting at the school with any students who have taken an interest in our project to invite them join in our work and learn about archaeology. We explain briefly in the classroom what we will be doing, but the majority of the learning must take place outside the classroom, beneath the hot sun, digging in the dirt. Most of the students at the meeting are girls. We find out that the boys have all arranged work to make some money, and the girls, who would otherwise be restricted to a day of chores, are more motivated to learn something new.

The next day we wait in anticipation beneath the large breadfruit tree at the school where we have asked everyone to meet early in the morning. At eight, the time we scheduled to meet, no one has shown. But slowly girls arrive two and three at a time until a large group has formed nervously ready to begin. David returns to see everyone ready and takes to his role as teacher.

He begins by asking everyone to look around them at the bits of rubbish that have been left under the breadfruit tree where many people gather throughout the day; little things that few of us notice regularly: gum wrappers, string, an old rusted metal knife, a few things David may have put there for his demonstration. Then to look at the load of sand the aumaga, the young men have dumped there to soften the ground for people’s feet. Imagine the bits of rubbish that must have been covered by that sand. Imagine this process occurring repeatedly over many hundred of years and then one will understand what we are looking for.

We then move to an area recently excavated for the foundation of a new school building, a large rectangle dug into the ground a meter and a half deep. Together, with shovels in hand, we all clean the profile of one wall of the rectangle. The girls see the layers, and bits of rubbish sticking from the top. We move to the wall opposite this one and see a similar but different profile. How do we understand how these two walls relate? We must look at the wall between. The girls clear the third wall and now understand stratigraphy.

We conclude the day by practicing a small one by one excavation, screening the soil for artifacts. Few things are found but the concepts are well understood. Now we must wait until Monday when the real excavations will begin, to see who will return to learn how these concepts are utilized to discover the remnants of the past. In the meantime, we each begin our individual projects in the afternoon, and attend dance practice in the evening in preparation for the coming festivities.

Aboard the MV Tokelau

The boat begins to roll. It is increasing now as we make way into the true ocean from out the protection of the harbor, and we feel the first hints of the motion we shall experience for the next three days. We watch the lights of the city recede into the dark night's horizon, enjoying the serenity of escape before the seasickness sets in and there is nothing left but black night and the smell of diesel fumes. The glow of the cabin lights prevents sleep. The wheelhouse is dark except for a foot in the window of a fellow passenger searching for a comfortable place to lay it. We are scattered on the mats and mattresses laid upon the floor, others lay upon the hard benches. Once the lights are turned out we try at a fitful sleep feeling the fight between the sea, of the waves traveling their great expanse to collide with our small vessel, its engine churning incessantly, pushing us through each wave.

The rain starts early the next morning while it is still dark and four young men hold a tarp to protect the others enduring the wind and rain until the storm subsides and they can retire to the galley for a cup of tea. We sail all the next day spending the majority of the time sleeping off the previous night's nausea, and eating as much as we can of the ship's warm food, chicken curry.

We arrive at the first island, Fakaofo, in the middle of the night and wait to the first glow of sunrise to appear of the island before we head for the anchorage. Unloading takes place amidst fits of rain. A small boat rides out to take passengers to the island. The driver's of the craft wear medical masks to prevent the spread of disease. Only those passengers bound for Fakaofo are allowed to disembark. the rest of us must stay upon the swaying ship unable to greet the occupants of the island. Large crates are maneuvered with the ship's crane onto the small barge which takes the goods to the island's wharf.

Unforeseen circumstances mar our plans, telecommunications engineers traveling aboard must stop at each of the islands for several hours while the rest of us wait. It is an inconvenience we accept as discouraging but necessary. We too will need the benefit of internet access for our work and do not wish for the people of these islands to be without it. For those stricken with seasickness it is an ironic relief as the boat rocks gently. For others who eat heartily there is little activity to release pent up energy besides puring through the few books we brought with us.

The next day we arrive at the second island, Nukunonu, and are relieved that we will be allowed to see the island while the engineers do their work. We feel the island sway beneath our feet and realize how much we have become accustomed to the rocking of the ship. We walk around the island telling people of our project. They are all excited about our work and ask when we will come to their island. We tell them that we must learn what we can from the other islands before we come next to there's as Nukunonu is much bigger than the other's and poses greater difficulties. Their faces still show a weary disbelief. Good fortune comes our way and the telecommunications engineers finish their work early. Some of them are from the island of Atafu, our final destination, and they too must want to reach home before they must spend another night aboard the ship.

We reach the anchorage at Atafu as the sun is setting and board the boat to the wharf while the last blue light is still in the sky. John Kalolo, the co-director of the project, greets us as we come ashore and shows each of us to the house where we will be staying, introducing the family at each of these homes who will be taking care of our needs. Plentiful food can always be expected and any need is instantly attended to. For now our most immediate need is a shower, and a soft bed.