Study reveals pre-historic Tongan empire

A new study by Australian researchers has stated that Tonga was the only prehistoric state in Oceania to encompass an entire archipelago and extend its influence to other island groups.

The study – “Stone tools from the ancient Tongan state reveal prehistoric interaction centres in the Central Pacific” – was written by Dr Geoffrey Clark and Dr Christian Reepmeyer of the Australian National University and published in notable scientific journal PNAS.

The study concluded that: “The Tongan state was the only maritime polity in Oceania to encompass an entire archipelago and, through long-distance voyaging, to extend its influence to other island groups through political and economic exchanges.”

Their conclusions were drawn from the analysis of hundreds of “lithics” (stone tools and artefacts) excavated in Tonga.

According to the study, much of the lithics found in Tongatapu were made in other Pacific Islands such as Samoa, Fiji, ‘Uvea and the Society Islands (French Polynesia).

The origins were determined by geometric analysis, a five step process involving radio genic and statistical analysis.

The study stated: “To establish the extent of Tonga’s maritime polity, we geochemically analyzed stone tools excavated from the central places of the ruling paramounts, particularly lithic artifacts associated with stone-faced chiefly tombs.

“In the Tongan state, 66 per cent of worked stone tools were long-distance imports, indicating that inter-archipelago connections intensified with the development of the Tongan polity after AD 1200.

“In contrast, stone tools found in Samoa were from local sources, including tools associated with a monumental structure contemporary with the Tongan state.

“Based on our geochemical analyses, there was extensive movement of lithics into the Tongan state, with stone tools sourced from volcanic islands in the Tonga archipelago as well as Fiji, Samoa, and remarkably Tahiti, 2500 km east of Tongatapu.”

The study described the uniqueness of Tonga’s prehistoric state and its role in spreading information about political organisation across prehistoric Polynesia.

“Exotic lithics were an important source of political capital used by Tongan elites, and an important consequence of centralisation was the development of interaction centers through which people, products, and information about political organizations reached many parts of the prehistoric Pacific.”

“In the first half of the second millennium AD, a powerful and complex society emerged in the Tonga Islands that was unique in the Pacific for the way it aggregated an entire archipelago under a single political system.

“Considered a maritime empire or chiefdom, Tonga has recently been categorised as a primary or archaic state that, along with the late-prehistoric polities of the Hawaiian Islands, were the most complex societies in prehistoric Oceania.”

There was also a detailed description of Tonga’s old capital “Lapaha”.

According to the study: “Lapaha has 27 stone-faced burial structures that contain more than 2500 tons of quarried and transported carbonate stone.

“Radiocarbon dates, architectonic features, and chiefly genealogies indicate the first royal tombs were built AD 1300–1400, with the last constructed AD 1760.

“Additional constructions marking the chiefly centre include ditch systems, roads, earth burial mounds, sitting platforms, bathing wells, standing stones, and a large area of reclaimed land containing a canoe harbour and wharf, which highlight the importance of maritime transport to the polity.”