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It is evident then that Kirch has thoroughly bungled the classification of the Niuatoputapu stone adzes and missed the opportunity to demonstrate their close relationship with some of the early Marquesan adzes. (The lack of plano-convex adzes and or adzes demonstrating convex surfaces may be due to the small extent of the sample, the discovery of base flattened oval plano-convex adzes in Niuatoputapu would further strengthen the possibility of this Island being a direct source of early Marquesan settlements). How much of his adze commentary we can accept remains dubious while it is clear that he has been highly influenced by Greens analysis of the plano-convex forms, which he relates correctly to the earlier periods, however the position of these adzes and their varied forms, within the earliest Lapita and the later plainware needs a careful review. Now we must address Kirch's handling of the shell adzes, these are briefly detailed, and are again found inconsistently and inadequately illustrated. The assumption is that the reader is already fully versed in existing shell typologies and the examples illustrated are not identified with any sort of classification nomenclature. Kirch mentions types in his diagnosis but does not relate these to the illustrated examples. The impression given is that the Tikopian material is so well done that there is no point in giving an analysis of individual Niuatoputapu specimens. Indeed we learn nothing of shell adze typology from Kirch's Niuatoputapu examples. Kirch restricts his analysis to statements concerning the chronological implications of certain forms. In summary then one must question all statements made by Kirch as concerns adzes. While his work may be of a very high standard in certain other areas of Archeology he has committed the grave error of publishing erroneous material, and thus we are liable to see in the near future the propagation of these errors by others, exactly as he has propagated the confusion and ambiguity inherent in the regressive Green and Davidson Samoan adze classification. |
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