Burial artifacts from the Marshall Islands: description, dating and evidence for extra-archipelago contacts

Abstract—Salvage excavations had been conducted by D. Spennemann and associates in 1989 at a prehistoric cemetery at Laura village, Majuro islet, Majuro Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. These excavations are summarized and the 631 artifacts associated with 12 of 29 human burials are described. Radiocarbon age determinations of three inter-ments associated with the most numerous and diverse artifacts provide ages ranging from the 1st to 11th centuries AD—encompassing the first half of Marshallese prehistory. Artifacts described include Spondylus and Conus shell beads, Golden cowrie (Cypraea aurantium) pendants, a Spondylus nose ring, ground bivalves (Cardium orbitum), possibly used as charms, several styles of Conus shell rings, a Porites coral abrader, pearl shell lures, and a Tridacna maxima adze. The possible charms, pen-dants, and nose ring artifact types have not been reported previously for the Marshall Islands. Conus shell beads may be an early period artifact class with Spondylus disks more common in late prehistory. Contact with the Solomon Islands and several islands within eastern Micronesia is suggested by shared stylistic attributes of pearl shell trolling lure shanks and this evidence adds temporal details to the generalized colo-nization routes based on linguistic evidence