Introduction of the Lapita online database Project

Since the initial discovery of Lapita pottery made by Father Otto Meyer in 1909 n the Watom Island of New Britain, Bismark archipelago, Papua New Guinea, this particular kind of pottery have been found in numerous islands of the Bismark archipelago, Papua New Guinea, and also in the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa as well. This particular style of pottery, especially with its dentate-stamped decoration, has become a cultural index for archeologists to estimate the direction and speed of migration, the scale of regional trade, and the development of cultural groups of the Lapita peoples.

The applicant is authorized to use publicly available images, provided they comply with the Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 TW) license for non-commercial purposes. There is no need to submit a request through the system—you may download them directly. You are welcome to make full use of these resources. Please just cite the date of accessing the data from this database if you want to use the materials for publication.

Team and Collaborators

1. Project Director：
2. Scarlett Chiu
3. Project Assistant：
4. Yu-Yin Su
5. Part-Time Worker：
6. Tien-Hui Chen, Nicholas W.S. Hogg, Ting-Yi Li, Liang-Hsuan Ou-Yang

Academia Sinica

1. 。Academia Sinica
2. 。Institute of History and Philology

National Digital Archives Program

1. 。The Digital Museum of Nature & Culture
2. 。National Palace Museum

Current number of sites included in this database

1. 。number of motifs：11,062
2. 。number of sherds：91,259
3. 。number of vessel forms：191
4. Least Modified Date：Sep 19,2025